All Comments (16)

"Islam has shown a lamentable susceptibility to violence. Christianity also has such a mark against it historically. Judaism showed little ancient susceptibility to this disease."-- Gardner Taylor

Am I supposed to take the good Reverend's word for it?

"Islam has shown a lamentable susceptibility to violence. Christianity also has such a mark against it historically. Judaism showed little ancient susceptibility to this disease."-- Gardner Taylor

Are we suppose to just take the good reverend's word for it?

Hey, bravo, Mavaddat!

This should dissolve a bunch of the other debates on this forum as well.

I figured it out. We are all right. Everything everyone believes is true.

I found the cure to all our disagreements. This whole time, the source of our bickering was that we were relying on "logical consistency" as a necessary condition for truth.

How silly of us! Finally, we can all agree that we are all correct, by which I mean no one is right, which is to say that no one is wrong.

Well done everybody!

Owen Tuneap,

Thank YOU so very very much.

The world, the universe that The Almighty or Nature has created for us is so generous, so wonderful that it is a pity to cultivate even an unheathy distrust of the other that can damage this generosity and beauty of God's creation and of Nature.

Rizwan,

I appreciate your feedback, and yes I was being completely sarcastic. However, to blame the west for most every problem in the middle east is avoiding reality.

Please listen to yourself:

" killing millions for oil"
" putting in dictators "
" falsely connecting Saddam and Al Qaida"
" the west has frustrated people "
" People suffering because of the west"

There's more than one pipeline spouting propoganda here, and it's not all in the west.

Sorry, I feel your pain. But it is not all our fault. I also don't know the pain of the Kurds who were gassed, women raped in rape rooms, and those receiving shrapnel from missles (Israel, Saudia Arabie). That is all well documented and Saddam brought it on himself.

I think immensely more suffering has been brought on by evil despots than the west.

Owen ,
you totally missed the point. You live in a west and yo dont know jack about what west has actually done to the other parts of the world. West has been activily putting dicators in the name of democracy. Killing millions in Iraq for oil based on falsely connecting Saddam and Al Qaida. Yes indeed there is absolutely no justifications for all those acts of violence. But west has frustated people. You dont know because you dont find yourself in the shoes of people who are actually suffering because of powers in the west. The thing is that you dont feel the pain of millions of people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. For you when you turn off the TV every thing is back to normal. You know what before you even bring the relegion first read your own relegion book , if you have any. After that read the Quran and then compare it. Its not the relegion my freind, its politics, whether u justify it with relegion or any thing else.

Mohamed MALLECK,

You are so right. Most people do not understand Islam. The violence is sporadic. Most of it is done by young men who are confused and just expressing their frustration with the west.

All the videos of streets full of muslims shouting "butcher infidels", "death to bush", "death to americans", "behead the infidels", etc are probably exaggerations and fabrications.

9-11 was probably just an accident also, as some have suggested. The planes flew off course and unfortunately hit a couple of the largest buildings in the world. This is unfortunate, but these things happen.

Thank you for correcting the good reverend on his views.

homer, you wrote:

"All Religions Tempted by Greed, Violence."
Really? You mean christianity and Islam.

Rev. Taylor stated that he believed both Christianity and Islam could be tempted by these vices and have.

I've read many, many responses to this question. Many critics of Christianity continually point out that it has, regretably, been violent in the past. The interesting thing to me though, is that even when the panelist has pointed this out and admitted it, as several have, posters feel the need to point it out again. Like the author was being hypocritical or something (?) I don't understand that.

The question was regarding Islam. If the question had been regarding another religion the panelists would be commenting on that.

Mr. Taylor,

I don't know on what authority you purport to pontificate about Islam, but your words are terribly insulting and that puts you in the category of those you describe as being violent.

Read, understand, and seek to share rather than condemn froma point of throrough ignorance. You demean yourself by blaming when you are ignorant of Islam.

Pastor Taylor,

You wrote:

"Islam has shown a lamentable susceptibility to violence. Christianity also has such a mark against it historically. Judaism showed little ancient susceptibility to this disease."

"Judaism showed little ancient susceptibility to this disease."

Pastor, Did you never read the Old Testament?

Best wishes.

"All Religions Tempted by Greed, Violence."

Really? You mean christianity and Islam.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.

But that the public should enlighten itself is more likely; indeed, if it is only allowed freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. For even among the entrenched guardians of the great masses a few will always think for themselves, a few who, after having themselves thrown off the yoke of immaturity, will spread the spirit of a rational appreciation for both their own worth and for each person's calling to think for himself. But it should be particularly noted that if a public that was first placed in this yoke by the guardians is suitably aroused by some of those who are altogether incapable of enlightenment, it may force the guardians themselves to remain under the yoke--so pernicious is it to instill prejudices, for they finally take revenge upon their originators, or on their descendants. Thus a public can only attain enlightenment slowly. Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.

Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters. But on all sides I hear: "Do not argue!" The officer says, "Do not argue, drill!" The tax man says, "Do not argue, pay!" The pastor says, "Do not argue, believe!" (Only one ruler in the World says, "Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!") In this we have examples of pervasive restrictions on freedom. But which restriction hinders enlightenment and which does not, but instead actually advances it? I reply: The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind; the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public use of one's own reason I understand the use that anyone as a scholar makes of reason before the entire literate world. I call the private use of reason that which a person may make in a civic post or office that has been entrusted to him. Now in many affairs conducted in the interests of a community, a certain mechanism is required by means of which some of its members must conduct themselves in an entirely passive manner so that through an artificial unanimity the government may guide them toward public ends, or at least prevent them from destroying such ends. Here one certainly must not argue, instead one must obey. However, insofar as this part of the machine also regards himself as a member of the community as a whole, or even of the world community, and as a consequence addresses the public in the role of a scholar, in the proper sense of that term, he can most certainly argue, without thereby harming the affairs for which as a passive member he is partly responsible. Thus it would be disastrous if an officer on duty who was given a command by his superior were to question the appropriateness or utility of the order. He must obey. But as a scholar he cannot be justly constrained from making comments about errors in military service, or from placing them before the public for its judgment. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed on him; indeed, impertinent criticism of such levies, when they should be paid by him, can be punished as a scandal (since it can lead to widespread insubordination). But the same person does not act contrary to civic duty when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts regarding the impropriety or even injustice of such taxes. Likewise a pastor is bound to instruct his catecumens and congregation in accordance with the symbol of the church he serves, for he was appointed on that condition. But as a scholar he has complete freedom, indeed even the calling, to impart to the public all of his carefully considered and well-intentioned thoughts concerning mistaken aspects of that symbol, as well as his suggestions for the better arrangement of religious and church matters. Nothing in this can weigh on his conscience. What he teaches in consequence of his office as a servant of the church he sets out as something with regard to which he has no discretion to teach in accord with his own lights; rather, he offers it under the direction and in the name of another. He will say, "Our church teaches this or that and these are the demonstrations it uses." He thereby extracts for his congregation all practical uses from precepts to which he would not himself subscribe with complete conviction, but whose presentation he can nonetheless undertake, since it is not entirely impossible that truth lies hidden in them, and, in any case, nothing contrary to the very nature of religion is to be found in them. If he believed he could find anything of the latter sort in them, he could not in good conscience serve in his position; he would have to resign. Thus an appointed teacher's use of his reason for the sake of his congregation is merely private, because, however large the congregation is, this use is always only domestic; in this regard, as a priest, he is not free and cannot be such because he is acting under instructions from someone else. By contrast, the cleric--as a scholar who speaks through his writings to the public as such, i.e., the world--enjoys in this public use of reason an unrestricted freedom to use his own rational capacities and to speak his own mind. For that the (spiritual) guardians of a people should themselves be immature is an absurdity that would insure the perpetuation of absurdities.

But would a society of pastors, perhaps a church assembly or venerable presbytery (as those among the Dutch call themselves), not be justified in binding itself by oath to a certain unalterable symbol in order to secure a constant guardianship over each of its members and through them over the people, and this for all time: I say that this is wholly impossible. Such a contract, whose intention is to preclude forever all further enlightenment of the human race, is absolutely null and void, even if it should be ratified by the supreme power, by parliaments, and by the most solemn peace treaties. One age cannot bind itself, and thus conspire, to place a succeeding one in a condition whereby it would be impossible for the later age to expand its knowledge (particularly where it is so very important), to rid itself of errors,and generally to increase its enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, whose essential destiny lies precisely in such progress; subsequent generations are thus completely justified in dismissing such agreements as unauthorized and criminal. The criterion of everything that can be agreed upon as a law by a people lies in this question: Can a people impose such a law on itself? Now it might be possible, in anticipation of a better state of affairs, to introduce a provisional order for a specific, short time, all the while giving all citizens, especially clergy, in their role as scholars, the freedom to comment publicly, i.e., in writing, on the present institution's shortcomings. The provisional order might last until insight into the nature of these matters had become so widespread and obvious that the combined (if not unanimous) voices of the populace could propose to the crown that it take under its protection those congregations that, in accord with their newly gained insight, had organized themselves under altered religious institutions, but without interfering with those wishing to allow matters to remain as before. However, it is absolutely forbidden that they unite into a religious organization that nobody may for the duration of a man's lifetime publicly question, for so do-ing would deny, render fruitless, and make detrimental to succeeding generations an era in man's progress toward improvement. A man may put off enlightenment with regard to what he ought to know, though only for a short time and for his own person; but to renounce it for himself, or, even more, for subsequent generations, is to violate and trample man's divine rights underfoot. And what a people may not decree for itself may still less be imposed on it by a monarch, for his lawgiving authority rests on his unification of the people's collective will in his own. If he only sees to it that all genuine or purported improvement is consonant with civil order, he can allow his subjects to do what they find necessary to their spiritual well-being, which is not his affair. However, he must prevent anyone from forcibly interfering with another's working as best he can to determine and promote his well-being. It detracts from his own majesty when he interferes in these matters, since the writings in which his subjects attempt to clarify their insights lend value to his conception of governance. This holds whether he acts from his own highest insight--whereby he calls upon himself the reproach, "Caesar non eat supra grammaticos."'--as well as, indeed even more, when he despoils his highest authority by supporting the spiritual despotism of some tyrants in his state over his other subjects.

What is the saying? "The Devil can quote scripture (or Quran) to his own ends."

the good reverend always finds the most egalitiarian
approach to any question.

it seems obvious that by singling out islam, biases are being expressed- as this discrimination is the only valid one in america today.

it even marks one as a good american- much like being anti-communism did at one time.

"The desire to win converts, itself understandable and laudable, is easily perverted into the passion to control, often by violent means if deemed necessary."

This is very true, and thank you for saying it. I think the reverse approach is also true: religions are excellent vehicles for controlling populations, and evil men will use violence to spread the one chosen by their State. They may *not* have a true passion to convert people to something they themselves love, which regrettably decays into violence - it could be entirely a political decision for control. The leader could even be an atheist using the religion as a convenient cover and rallying cry, rather than a believer who resorts to violence to 'spread the word'.

I think history shows us plenty of examples of this in both Christianity and Islam, and the question becomes "Why is it so easy for someone who clearly has no interest in Love or Forgiveness to manipulate the texts in this way?" And why does monotheism lend itself so well to fundamentalism?