Curiouser and Curiouser, murmured the Elephant's Child

Post Reply New Topic

I have more of a problem with Islam than with most forms of Christianity - if we get down to the nitty gritty. I live in a very Islamic area because most of the Christians where I live are lapsed Catholics. Islam is the most dominant religion locally because that's the one that has the most local people taking it seriously. Nationally though, I come from a Christian influenced country.

I have about an equal dislike of both Catholicism and Islam and when I criticise religion, I criticise both equally. I don't really dislike most Protestant denominations as they exist in the UK, though...beyond the fundamental flaws that I find with Christian theology in general.

I think the tendency of Internet Atheists to criticise Christianity 98% of the time (ahead of other religions) is not unique to WP at all. I'm often surprised that the Christians on here are surprised by it. When I was a Christian I saw far more of it on other forums. I think it happens because the Internet is made of white American men aged 16-35 (rather than being made of cats). Most people who post on the 'net don't come from big European cities...if they did, you'd see far more people criticising Islam. Not that I'm a believer in 'Eurabia' or any crap like that...it's just that Europeans are more critical of Islam due to having more experience of it.

Then again, my experience of Islam is that it's much harder to debate with believers the same way you can with Christians. I don't want to sound Islamophobic, but in my experience, they are far more easy to offend. Offence is not my intention. I have met Muslims who are very open to discussion, but that's not as common as meeting Christians who are (this is only my experience). If they don't get offended, they often have this attitude of, 'you come from a different culture, so you cannot possibly understand our ways'. Also, sometimes if you criticise Islam, you don't just get charges of intolerance thrown at you, you get called racist as well - because people have more of a difficulty with separating religion, culture and ethnicity as regards Islam.

Scuse me, I will return to serious in a moment.
Meanwhile. Awesomely Glorious tells me :"This means that Philologos, you are being a FOOL for not worshiping the Octopus god"

This is close to the Pascal Wager. But Pascal's Pascaline operated on base 10, like my hands and feet. The octopus is at best octal. If I worship a cephalopod - which is increasingly unlikely - it has to be Architeuthis,