Bottom line: all religions are the same. Most adherents are peaceful and ethical. But a minority uses a distorted view of the faith's teachings to hate and to murder

If it weren't religion it would be soccer scores.Or which end of the soft boiled egg should be tapped open.

Justifying grotesquery does not require distortion of the teachings of most faiths. Read the books. "Thou shalt not kill" applied only to fellow Israelites. Ask any Canaanite.

Religion is particularly dangerous when it embraces the concepts of monotheism and an afterlife.

If a community believes in only one god, there is an inevitable temptation to believe that theirs is the "one true god". Logically, non-believers, or believers in a different god, are trangressing the will of the one true god. It is only a short step to deciding that the one true god has commanded that they be exterminated.

A belief in the afterlife reduces a person's drive for self-preservation. In the extreme, it can make death a desired gateway to permanent glory in paradise when death occurs under the right circumstances, such as killing those who do not believe in the one true god. It also reduces the grief suffered by the believer's community when the believer dies.

I'm with you MJ. Either the problem is religious extremism in general, or really any extremism that leads somebody to commit not only a violent act but to coerce people's private behavior or we just admit that a guy in a high stress situation with psychological problems who has been deployed to a combat zone just snapped and that his example really doesn't tell us much of anything about the human condition.

Lieberman is an attention whore, he loves to be the center of attention. I first noticed his love of the TV cameras when during the Bush years the number of times he was standing behind Bush when Bush came out to the veranda of the White House to make some short statement.

I was always puzzled about how Lieberman managed this, was he on-call to the White House at these particular times. Did a Bush aide call him and alert him to time and place of a photo op?
If this is so, what did Lieberman give Bush in return?

Its puzzling.

Now he wants to hold hearings on Muslims in the military. He'll be in 7th Heaven.

Severe criminals can be found in all religions, races, and nations. But that doesn't mean all religions or ideologies are the same. The percentage of Amish and Mennonite who set off car bombs is lower than that of many other religions, in particular, Islam.

To say that all religions are the same would mean that ideology has no influence, and therefore that Rosenberg's column is also useless.

In point of fact, though, it is of course possible that Goldstein and Hasan had the same kind of brain disease. In an individual case there usually isn't enough information to tell. But statistics tell a different story.

If the government of Israel can label Goldstein a terrorist, which it has, why can't Hasan be labeled the same way? By other Muslims, too?

Bottom line: all religions are the same.

If you want proof that all religions aren't the same, that all cultures aren't the same, that all people brought up in these religions and cultures aren't the same, here it is

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/971/op13.htm

from the Egyptian government newspaper "Al Ahram".
Why anyone continues to believe anything Rosenberg says is beyond understanding.

Yes, religious fanatics are hazardous to our health. But a key element here is the easy availability of concealable handguns, as well.

more nuts from the farm:
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.
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a kosher nut
West Bank rabbi: Jews can kill Gentiles who threaten Israel

a sharia nut
Top cleric: Murder Jews in Islam's name

This Argumentation is ridiculous!

Okay, now you can sue me?

Today, in the San Diego area, attorneys are looking at the military from a differing perspective. To wit, did military recruiters go into Northern Mexico and promise potential recruits American "citizenship"? It seems several enlisted and upon discharge did not receive the anticipated/excepted "citizenship" that was promised and accepted. And if that's the "unassailable" fact, the Jury will have to make the decision as to whether America has a "mercenary" Army or not. And if the jury does decide in favor of a "mercenary" Army, America has a "problem" of major import, and not just among the Chicanos here in the Southwest.

And now to the two Wars in the Middle East. The Constitution requires a Declaration of War. Does the AUMF legally qualify as a Declaration of War? And if you were sitting in the applicable jury for rendering such a "judgement" how would you defend your 'decision'?

Jaango

Lieberman is about as good an example of a religious fanatic as any. I think he went delusional after 9/11. It seemed to bring forth this dark cold mean over the top paranoia.

Political Islam

Delineation of political, cultural and faith-centric aspects of each religion is called for.

No one faith, by itself, i.e. a believer holding and expressing faith in some supernatural power, is superior or inferior to any other. Logically, it makes absolute zero difference which name a given believer uses to appellate his notion or conception of "God" with. The main distinction exists whether one believes, has no faith, or is agnostic. I am, at the moment, what I call a scientifically agnostic believer (SAB), for example.

Now, just about every religion out there, through its course of existence, in addition to the faith component, has also been affiliated with:
A. political aspects
B. associated cultures
as those evolved and came to be what they are today.

Cultures associated with religions need to be understood and judged (where appropriate, in a comparative and considered fashion) in the context of their existence and presence. It is my view that the positive, constructive and inspiring/awe-inspiring (ala the pyramids, the great wall of china, moon landing, discovery of zero and the number systems, discovery of the atomic structure, the Taj Mahal, great languages of the world, various art forms, etc, etc) aspects of all cultures that ever existed anywhere on the planet form the collective of our shared human cultural/artistic/scientific heritage.

As for the politics of a religion beyond faith and culture, for any given religion/faith, it's political component should be judged critically, not unlike how we try to analyze political parties (Democratic, Republican, Green, etc), without injecting excessive political correctness (sensitivity on touchy matters is fine, but not phony PCness), but instead using sound and solid facts. It would have been best if faith/religions were completely detached from politics, but, clearly, history hasn't been that way, and, unfortunately, it likely won't be that way in the near or foreseeable future.

One observation is the following: Jesus Christ, the inspiration for Christianity, was a humanitarian (similar to Mahatma Gandhi), whereas Mohammed, Islam's founder, was a great warrior, whose conquests are glorified by Islam the religion at its core. Might that be a key distinction between these two monotheistic religions?

While Christianity has quite a violent past, it appears to be, steadily albeit slowly, converging towards a secular, inclusive and progressive form (TPM, Daily Kos etc being partial illustrations of that evolving change), but, OTOH, Islam, through out its existence, has never been detached from warfare, as especially painfully evident in its spread through much violence in the Indian subcontinent:

'The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage' (page 459), Will Durant, 1935: "The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period."