We are doomed, unless...

[Nosuperstition]

Once Constantin became Christian, Romans turned 180 degree.
In one or two generation idol worshipping Romans were persecuted,killed,exiled.
In Rome no Roman worshipping old gods can be found in50 years. Temples were destroyed,idols wre used to pave roads.

All one God people are same.Christians became mellow after Second World War,thanks to secular ideology.

Mahmud of Ghazni also did the same.He broke down into pieces the Hindu idol in the sanctum sanctorum of famous Somnath temple and used the fragments to embellish the steps of Jumma mosque or Friday mosque in Ghazni so that the superiority of Islam is proclaimed in the form of dirt of believer being above the holy relic of the kafir.He might have got the idea from Christians or might be he developed it on his own based on the theoritical superiority of Islam.

[manfred]

what exactly do you consider something to be a moral development?Is scorning at somebody that he is worthy of everlasting hell just because he did not belong to your cult a healthy moral development?

No. Strawmen again.

For example, the golden rule is a moral development, as is the notion that people deserve help based on NEED and not on "merit". The notion that suffering is linked to desire, as Buddhists teach, is also something that belongs in that category, as it the idea that everybody is your neighbour.

It is important to understand that moral concepts and developments often (not always) were first expressed in religious context, but religion cannot claim a monopoly on such ideas. Similarly it is also a fallacy to assume that a moral idea must be valuable purely because it is expressed as part of a religious belief. That is the Shariah fallacy.

It is also false that the purpose of religion is exclusively to provide such moral guidance.

And all so called religious experiences are nothing but releases of serotonin and dopamine that trigger happiness.

False, in fact completely. in fact few religious experiences are about happiness and warm chocolate feelings. Mostly they are quite unsettling because they urge a complete change in lifestyle, and personal sacrifices. But sure, there may be biochemical and psychological explanations, as you suggest. Whether they suffice to make sense of that is a matter of opinion.

Remember that many things can be explained at different levels: You are eating a sandwich. Is it because you have decided to? Because you are conditioned to eat such food? because you have feeling of hunger? Because of some hormonal changes in you body giving you the feeling you should eat? ALL of these have something to do with why you may eat a sandwich and more things I have not even mentioned. And the important thing to realise is that one explanation does not invalidate or contradict any of the others.

[Nosuperstition]

Mostly they are quite unsettling because they urge a complete change in lifestyle, and personal sacrifices.

Can you explain further?Being a Jew is quite difficult,being a muslim a bit difficult but being a Christian and having a Christian lifestyle nowadays seems to be quite easy.

[pr126]

Mostly they are quite unsettling because they urge a complete change in lifestyle, and personal sacrifices.

Can you explain further?Being a Jew is quite difficult,being a muslim a bit difficult but being a Christian and having a Christian lifestyle nowadays seems to be quite easy.

I think that Christianity managed to adapt to the times, and it has less restricting rules.

[Nosuperstition]

All one God people are same.Christians became mellow after Second World War,thanks to secular ideology.

If Christians of Rome paved the streets with broken pieces of holy pagan idols,Muslims removed and dragged the cross that was installed on the dome of Rock during crusader victory in street dust after defeating the crusaders.Perhaps it is just a sign of triumphalism.

[Nosuperstition]

It is said that Abraham proved idols to be useless in Mesopotamia as they cannot speak,convey any message etc by doing some mischief to them/with them.

By destroying pagan idols,Christians perhaps wanted to prove the same futility of praying to idols and superiority of their Christian God.In olden days when scientific temper did not exist that was said to have been viewed as miracle that convinced the rest to convert to their faith.

Christians also did the same in Germany when they destroyed a holy tree of the Germanic tribes and proved that it was powerless while their Christian god was miraculously powerful and this is said to have converted many pagan Germans.

Similiarly by removing the crescent from the dome of rock,they tried to demonstrate the power of their God over Allah whom they considered as Satan.

Muslims also tried to prove that Hindu idols are useless before the power of Allah when they desecrated countless Hindu idols.

They also tried to demonstrate the same when they dragged the cross of crusaders planted atop the dome of the Rock on dirt in the streets of Jerusalem when they reconquered it from the Crusaders.Once again this supposed miracle instills faith much more into believers.

Perhaps that is the reason why ohmyrus said that if ever anything of the sort of nuclear weapon is detonated by Muslims in the West,Mecca must be nuked to demonstrate to the muslims the futility of their faith and the powerlessness of All powerful Allah in protecting his most holy place.

[Nosuperstition]

Whenever the armies of Vijaynagar overran any Bahamani town or village they torched it. With this they put the fear of death into Muslim minds and soon, the Adilshahi and Nizamshahi sultans sued for a treaty with Vijaynagar that would proscribe the killing of civilians by either side.

From then on this treaty was adhered to by both the Hindus and Muslims, till Vijaynagar was finally defeated at the battle of Talikotai and dramatically and savagely destroyed by the Muslims immediately after the battle! But with the final defeat of the Hindus at Talikotai, the Muslims repudiated this treaty, as their founder Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah had repudiated the treaty of Hudaibiya, and so after the battle of Talikotai the truculent Muslims indulged in a gory slaughter of all the Hindu inhabitants of Vijaynagar, they murdered everyone they could lay their hands on. Not a single person was allowed to live in that beleaguered city. The city itself was reduced to rubble, after six months of ceaseless pillage and wanton destruction.

http://www.historyofjihad.org/india.html

Here according to the Malayala Manorama year book (a book under Christian management),the battle of Tallikota took place mainly because the Sultans wanted to put an end to Vijayanagar once and for all as in the previous war of Vijayanagar under Hindu Rama Raya ranged against Ahmednagar,its Hindu soldiers went on rampage ,raped and torched and razed down many mosques in the defeated muslim principality of Ahmednagar.This behaviour was in stark contrast to behaviour after victories of Vijaya Nagar army under Sri Krishna Deva Raya where muslim civilians,their women and property were spared in Bidar and Ahmednagar.I got that book as a prize for standing first in class somewhere between my 6th and 10th standards.So might be the treaty proscribing the killing/molesting of civilians was not always strictly adhered to as in any war,passions/tempers run high.

Strangely however the supposedly intolerant Rama raya had previously allowed Muslims to slaughter cows considered holy by Hindus in their district of the Hindu city of Vijayanagar.

So might be destruction of Vijayanagar was also to avenge wanton destruction of mosques.Perhaps destruction of mosques and other sites of religious importance are explained as God sees the truth,but waits ----Leo Tolstoy. by all those sides that loose wars.

The translation of what you wrote above is that Allah is powerless! How is your God different from the God of pagans so that we can call Allah as powerful and pagan gods as powerless? I see no difference. Even the pagans can claim the same thing that their God is patient and will deliver in the future just like you claimed so what makes you think that Allah is powerful and other Gods are powerless???

/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9141&p=147041&hilit=pagan+gods#p147041

[Nosuperstition]

I said Hindu armies torching muslim mosques was already too late as muslims have already got themselves firmly entrenched in Northern and Central parts of India for 700 years possibly due to Hindu disunity and lack of availability of proper arms and horses.Even day to day used Hindi of North India as of today has a lot lot many Persian and Arabic words in its lexicon.

The immense influence of Muslims on India is irreversible though one may try to do so with Sanskritised 'Sarkari' Hindi or govt. Hindi as it is called and looked down upon by the masses as it is far removed from their lexicon of day to day used Hindi words.

[Nosuperstition]

Yohan said Vijay Nagar had plenty of muslim soldiers enlisted in its army yet it lost.

Well muslim armies may have been enrolled as a result of compulsion of teaching archery tricks with the Turkish bow which the Hindus intially lacked.But once having enrolled them to such an extent,one must not have offended the sensibilities of Muslims by raping their hapless women and razing down their mosques in the defeated principality of Ahmednagar which might have prompted the key muslim divisions and commanders to ditch their Hindu employers in the key moments of the key battle of Tallikota.

And Hindus of Vijayanagar did not have the advantage of best breeds of horses from outside of sub-continent until the Portuguese came into the picture as horse traders.

[Nosuperstition]

Of course, the long-standing tradition of Muslim armies is to attack - preferably to attack weaker victims.

/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15974&p=210174&hilit=weaker#p210174

In general Hindus are perceived weak due to their short and thin stature.That could be one reason why muslims attacked the sub-continent.Other reasons are

1)Muslims in their age of science developed the Turkish bow that was far more efficient and deadly than the Indian long bow.

2)Hindus were a less militarised people.In general,the ranks of Hindu soldiers comprised even of fishermen and people of other castes who were more interested in getting back to home rather than living as professional soldiers.
Muslims on the other hand maintained standing armies.

3)The horses of Persian and Arabic breeds could run greater distances without much fatigue.Lean animals of sub-continent with some deficiency in their grass could not withstand that much fatigue.And one horseman is said to be equal to atleast 3 men on foot.By extension due to being civilised for long and being of tropical climate,even Hindus were relatively physically weak.

4)The immense booty in terms of gold available in the sub-continental towns and cities and mostly that of treasuries and temples were a magnet for invaders.

5)Some religions are said to inspire much more religious zeal than others partially due to moral supremacist feeling.The others are treated with such contempt that they can be massacred without any sort of compassion.
Christianity subduing native American civilisations also had this zeal.Byzantines also recorded that dealing with Saracens had become difficult due to their religious zealotry.

6)New tactics such as frightening Indian war elephants with fire lit camel backs were devised.

7)The sub-continent was divided into multiple small principalities.Where they were relatively united as had been the case with the Vijay Nagar Empire they still lacked good horses but they indeed did put up large fights.

It is said that Vijayanagar had an army as big as 1 million when it invaded the muslim principalities of Ahmednagar,Bijapur ,Bidar and Golconda under Krishna Deva Raya.They did indeed muster huge numbers for the big fights perhaps as they did not want to be shamed by/terrified by the thoughts of right of first night and such things after conquest and submission.

Secondly,prevailing custom of woman having to spend the night in a muslim household brought shame to Rajputs.

http://forum09.faithfreedom.org//viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15581&p=209082&hilit=Sherwani+Biryani#p209082

Until Portuguese arrived,Hindus did not have horses of fine breeds.

Perhaps that is the reason why Hindus elatedly took a Russian traveller cum businessman of 16th to 17th centuries inside the sacred temple of Srisailam when it was in all of its grandeur upon knowing that he was a Christian and not a muslim even though both fall under the Hindu category of mleccha or malich or impure.

[Nosuperstition]

Anyway Chinese commies and vast majority of Chinese and supporters of new chinese world empire have lost any moral compass of right and wrong.To them everything is ok as long as they have material means and large territory to rule.They have no strategy to fight Islam on moral or philosophical ground.

If it comes to materialism,Hindu culture doesn't lag behind.For example there is a Sanskrit saying 'Dhanamidam moolam jagat'(Money is the basis of this world).Do not know the source of this popular saying as to whether it is found in secular literature or religious literature.But then this is also the basis of capitalism.For capitalist economy to take off on a giant scale and develop the society at a faster pace,it is said that land reforms are a preclude.That is the reason why U.S forced Japan to implement land reforms and why other East Asian and South East Asian economies implemented the same.

But then land reforms did not take off on such a scale in India because of the greed of the landlords.Hence Hindus appear to be relatively spiritual.Thats it

Someone said in one of the old forums,that on his travels ,he only saw the subcontinentals and the Middle easterners with either sad or serious faces.He said that in other regions of world,he saw pleasant and happy faces.

Might be if land reforms had not taken off on a significant scale in Buddhist countries before the take off of capitalism,large middle class would not have been created there and might be faces even there would have looked sad.

[Nosuperstition]

Hindu beliefs have it that a soul that dies in happiness has more chance of salvation whereas that which died in a great agony will in general get caught in further attachments and re-births.

Well Swami Vivekananda said that he would take as many re-births as possible to free the bonded and aggrieved soles.Strangely his torch-bearers did not implement land reforms,bring about greater prosperity and thus usher in greater happiness and thus facilitate the release of greater number of souls.

[manfred]

"soles" ?

[pr126]

Dover soles.

[manfred]

This one is with buttered leeks and shrimps... Gorgeous.


Whereas this one is kind of tougher to digest, even with a perfect Hollandaise Sauce.

[Nosuperstition]

There is a strong prejudice in Hindus particularly in the older generation that muslims are malich or impure as they do not bathe regularly and instead rely more on scents and perfumes.

Christians of medieval period were also living petri dishes of different kinds of disease causing organisms as they too did not have proper daily baths due to overpopulation and a lack of awareness.So much so that the Spanish who brought Christianity to the Philippines were in turn taught about cleanliness and hygiene by the tribals who had bathing materials similiar to soaps.

Perhaps that is the reason why they too were considered malich once upon a time even though nowadays most do not even know its meaning.

[manfred]

Yes hygiene in Europe was somewhat basic in the past. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have bathed once a year....
To this day jokes about European hygiene are commonplace all over SE Asia. I guess due to living in colder climates, Europeans did not appreciate hygiene as much as people living in the tropics where poor hygiene can kill you.

[sum]

I think that we are drifting away from the topic of this thread.

Does anyone think that any Western Prime Minister or leader will ever say that there aspects of Islam that are incompatible with secular society and not be permitted?

sum

[Fernando]

I think that we are drifting away from the topic of this thread.

Does anyone think that any Western Prime Minister or leader will ever say that there aspects of Islam that are incompatible with secular society and not be permitted?

sum

No, because to say that when there was just a sprinkling of Muslims would be to get shouted down as "discriminatory". While to say it once there were a lot of Muslims would be to admit that they'd been mistaken in not dealing with Islam before it got out of hand.

Silly, really, because Islam has no problem at all with saying that it is incompatible with democracy, never mind with secularism.

[sum]

There still is no realistic suggestion of how to combat the childhood indoctrination of muslim children. Their minds are being filled with Islamic doctrine with no alternative doctrine reaching their minds.

I still maintain that in Britain Christianity should be outlined in lessons, especially in infant classes, with the main focus being love of all mankind and the role of the Golden Rule. Other regions might be considered but Islam should never be taught or children made to practice Islamic prayer rituals. No mention should be made of Muhammad.

What could teachers say about Muhammad? The truth would not be fitting for young children and anything other than the truth would support Islam.

sum