At 3/26/16 11:56 PM, Yu-Liu wrote:
It sounds like Marco Rubio has no right to call for the cut on immigration because his parents used to be?
He certainly has the right to his opinions. I don't dispute that, if I want my rights in that area protected I have to respect the rights of people to do the same....even if I think what they're saying is demonstrably stupid. The issue I take with Rubio's position is he's saying "no un-skilled workers, but elect me President, a successful son of unskilled workers". He's actually the defeat of his own argument because even if the ORIGINAL immigrants are unskilled, there's no telling what they're children could grow up to be with the right opportunities. That also goes back to something (I think) I said elsewhere about bad ideas: We shouldn't ban bad ideas, we should talk about them, drag them into the light....debate them, and kill them off by pointing out how bad they are. Bad ideas aren't always the result of bad people, usually they're the result of good people who just aren't super informed.
Well, I said already the definition of religion itself is controversial.
Is it though? Bet I could look it up right now and get a pretty clear definition, that's usually how words work....Oh look, I actually found 7 definitions for the word on dictionary.com. Give it a try yourself.
I can tell you that for instance whether or not Buddhism is considered a conventional “religion” is even debatable.
Not as far as the Constitution is concerned. It's considered a religion, therefore it is First Amendment protected. That's how the law and interpreting it works, we have to rigidly decide what a thing is or is not so we can determine whether or not it is or isn't protected or prohibited.
What I want to say is, a “thing” either Communist or IS/Taliban has effectively used to solidify their authoritarian rule.
I understand that the Taliban and ISIS have based their authority on an interpretation of the Islamic faith, yes. It is an interpretation that is not as unpopular and minority as a lot of Westerners wish to believe, that is also true. But they are not the ENTIRETY of the faith. One does not have to be affiliated with the Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaieda, or groups like them to be a Muslim and a follower of Muhammed and Islam. You want to punish EVERYONE because of the actions of these pricks. That's completely un-American and for me un-Civilized.
You tend to emphasize the political aspect of communism, which is nothing surprised.
Because that's what it is. That's what it's meant to do and be. It's meant to be a governmental structure that would run a society of people. That is what Marx intended it to do.
Because most religions are closely related to politics throughout human’s history.
That is true, but in the West theocracies or religion in government has gone away, in places like the US it has actually been put into a "Chinese Wall" sort of situation trying to separate them. In the East this has been less true.
I don’t think there’s a clear border between a religious group and a political group, except the original Buddhism, which was actually a pure personal philosophy, which is why many scholars argues that it doesn’t seem a “religion”.
The Buddha however took on followers, he taught his philosophy in the same way Jesus did, because he believed this would be of benefit to the world. There is also the fact that as the Buddha, Siddhartha Guatauma (spelling?) told his followers that he would forsake Nirvana and stay on the path of reincarnation to help others attain it. So please, show me some scholars that will ignore all that evidence I just put out there to try and say Buddhism is not a religion. Because this feels like you're just grabbing at a sketchy "argument from authority" type thing with nothing behind it other then "just trust me that this is the case".
Especially when it comes to China’s history.....
You have a lot of good information here, very factual, and it's a compelling argument....except you miss a couple of key pieces. You assert that "communism" is a political religion for China and NK. That isn't the case. Communism is the governmental mechanism, in China this was married into already existing spiritual concepts, and into the fact that as you pointed out the most "natural" state for China politically throughout it's history was that of a dynastic monarchy. Democracy was a rather young experiment for them and Shek fucked it up something royal with a lot of help from the US. So when Communism, which even in it's purest forms advocates an absolute ruler....well, that wasn't a real culture shock for folks already used to a monarchy. Communism however promotes atheism, the lack of religion, in it's more pure aspects. But China doesn't use it that way as I said, the political of Communism was welded into the fabric of the existing spiritual, creating a unique system that is wholly Chinese, and works for them, but I don't think you could export it and have it take root. NK is different....in part because they don't claim to be Communist....but it's functioning is more like a monarchy. Power is passed down within the Kim family, and the state religion reveres Kim Il Sung as a figure close to God, or Jesus. The leader is the state religion. You are taking widely different systems and saying "well, because people CALL them Communist....their Communist and Communism is the same no matter what, no matter where". If that were true, your argument would hold and I'd have no choice but to agree with you. But it's not, so it doesn't, so I don't.
My understanding is any violence based dictatorships are in essence the same sort of thing, no matter it claims to be a “party” or a “holy group”.
You're understanding is flawed. Two different things can have overlap without being the same thing.
Ultimately my actual question is how should we deal with an anti-humanity religion, should we equally protect it?
Like Nihilism? Islam isn't Nihilistic in principal. Like all Abrahamic religions it doesn't place a high value on people outside the tribe, allowing in fact for those within the tribe to kill those outside of it and not suffer consequences for it. But this does not mean the religion is "anti-humanity" as you describe. There are moderate Muslim's all over this country contributing at all levels of society. I really wish more of them would get together and work to help stamp out the extremists and bring that same moderate and reasonable understanding to those who may be more sympathetic to a fundamentalist bent. You also ignore the soil in which the religion grew, and continues to flourish. The situation on the ground there is much different then the situation here. Islamaphobes like yourself have the mistaken impression if we just get rid of Islam, it'll solve all of the problems, it really won't.
