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LastingLineDaily Bread v Daily Prayer by-nc-sa

Published: 2012-06-14 19:50:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 14531; Favourites: 355; Downloads: 119
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Description The beauty of the cosmopolitan city. Hour after hour, day after day, these two guys spend their time facing each other on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road in London. One of them is trying to attract spiritual followers, the other one - clients for a nearby shop.
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Comments: 124

Navid-Navesto In reply to ??? [2012-08-20 01:41:57 +0000 UTC]

indiddly again, sir, indiddly again.

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cereal-in-a-bowl In reply to Navid-Navesto [2012-08-20 07:14:23 +0000 UTC]

LOL...'indiddly again..." Hahaha...that's so "Flanders"....

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Navid-Navesto In reply to cereal-in-a-bowl [2012-08-22 00:29:21 +0000 UTC]

thats the point my friend ^^

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cereal-in-a-bowl In reply to Navid-Navesto [2012-08-22 02:02:33 +0000 UTC]

Ha-ha-ha. God bless you, friend.

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Navid-Navesto In reply to cereal-in-a-bowl [2012-08-22 02:22:22 +0000 UTC]

and you too .3.

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Urceola [2012-08-17 16:17:56 +0000 UTC]

Only four months a member and already a DD! You really deserve it.

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cereal-in-a-bowl [2012-08-17 16:16:34 +0000 UTC]

That is indeed interesting. God reveals Himself to everyone in different ways. Praise God for His wondrous deeds and marvels.

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arslanalp In reply to ??? [2012-08-17 16:07:58 +0000 UTC]

this is a good piece of work "how to (mis)read a photo"

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puddelbal [2012-08-17 16:03:51 +0000 UTC]

Welcome to capitalism in the US.

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TomServo1 In reply to puddelbal [2012-08-18 02:11:02 +0000 UTC]

Not quite--Americans would want to burn a Muslim on the stake.
"Only we're allowed to be terrorists, damnit!"

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Jules171 [2012-08-17 15:49:28 +0000 UTC]

very funny

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ??? [2012-08-17 15:46:50 +0000 UTC]

What I find most interesting is the top line about Mary. One of the most important, significant people in the religion, a woman, given such an important role...yet the culture (as a whole, on average, not to say every single person does) that follows treats all women as lesser human beings if humans at all.
I actually would really like to purchase a copy of the Qu'ran when I'm able to so I can have a better understanding of it as a whole. I have a hard time believing it literally states anywhere in it...er...the values and goals stereotyped onto the entire culture.

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TinyPasserine In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-18 05:54:04 +0000 UTC]

* (period) Maybe if there is an Islam club or community centre in your area, you can ask for a Qu'ran there.

A lack of nouns leads to a loss of clarification, oh dear D:

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TinyPasserine In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-18 05:51:27 +0000 UTC]

I got one for free from the Islam club at school Maybe if there's one at your local community, you can ask for one.

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Glowandstar In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-17 22:18:37 +0000 UTC]

go ahead, im reading it every now and then as well.

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wildlittlewolf13 In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-17 20:43:53 +0000 UTC]

I would suggest you get Ali Unal's The Qur'an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English. It's a very good copy, very easy to understand. I bought a copy for myself, and for my parents after I converted. I will note you with a link to a site where you can get it for a decent price.

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-17 19:47:21 +0000 UTC]

Good for you. You should do that. Even though I'm not a Muslim, I did it myself, and found out that the values stereotyped into it aren't literally in there, although I see how people could come away from it with different interpretations.
I also found some other fascinating things... It seems to say that there is in fact life on other planets, and it also seems to say that evolution is the process through which God created life. I might be misinterpreting, but I am not lying. That would explain why Christianity and Islam are the same in so many ways, but Christians and scientists are at each others throats over evolution while Muslims are not involved in that fight.

But to get back to women, first you have to remember that almost every society, even Christian ones, back in old times treated women as second class humans. Comparing the Qu'ran and the Bible, I actually found that the Quran actually kind of wins out. It actually takes time to explicitly say that women have rights, and then goes on to explain exactly what they are, which is really progressive by ancient standards, I think. I can't remember how many pages were dedicated to explaining that, but it was in the second Sura. The really long one that spells out what the laws of an Islamic country should be, if I remember correctly.

But... like with any religion, people sometimes draw whatever conclusion they want to, and then they combine religion and culture... and then people are all flawed anyway, so women end up getting pretty bad treatment in Islamic countries, more than they're supposed to, and people develop some pretty radical ideas.
Also, to Islam's credit, I think some of the things in it we outsiders call oppression aren't really very oppressive... They're just not things we'd want to see where we live.

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blocnotes In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-08-18 02:15:33 +0000 UTC]

I wish this was facebook, so I could "like" your comment

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to blocnotes [2012-08-19 01:35:09 +0000 UTC]

There are times I wish dA was YouTube also, so I could "Like" or things.

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-08-17 22:49:20 +0000 UTC]

I try to stay out of the evolution argument. I believe God used it. I don't see why it would be so hard to think God wouldn't use evolution for his creation. Same with other things like karma and energy flow...I believe those things could be very real. Why not? Besides, I have learned Hebrew numbers are extremely symbolic...almost more so than literal numerical value. The best example I could give is the number 7 which means 'completeness'. So it makes sense old Hebrew text could be translated to say earth was created in 7 days. I don't think it ever was supposed to be interpreted as 7 literal, 24 hour, days.

Oh yes. I understand just about every culture in history has at one point treated woman badly.
That is one very large reason I want to read the Qu'ran for myself. I have heard of some of the things written in it and I always end up wondering how in the world radicals can get their ideas from words that always speak of peace. Maybe I won't figure that out, but I'm curious nonetheless.

Anyways, I admit I have only come across two Muslim families in my lifetime. One family owned a little store in our town and were extremely nice people. The other family I met at a very small Baptist church (oddly enough). They were quiet, but still really nice to every one.

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-17 23:05:46 +0000 UTC]

I sincerely hope you get that Qu'ran.

Leaving you that Reply and then reflecting on it, and knowing what[little] I know about languages got me thinking that 7 days was not meant to be taken as seven literal 24 hour days, so it's really interesting that you already said you believed that. I also find it interesting that I have finally encountered someone who said they knew something about Hebrew. You didn't say you knew the language, but maybe you do.

Sid question. How bad do you think badly is? If girl are taught (read: brainwashed) to not want anything except for the simplest things, then if they grow up to only want simple things, and they are not even allowed to do other things even if they got the notion to do those things that men are doing, so they just go back to the simple things they actually did genuinely want before, that may be bad, but how bad is it really? Inequality may always be bad, but is it that bad really if the brainwashing was successful, or does it only become bad when the brainwashed wake up and want more?

Whoa, wait. How do you meet a Muslim family at a Baptist church.

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-08-18 00:32:39 +0000 UTC]

Oh...no I don't know the language itself, although that would be super cool. I just try to study Christianity outside the Christian-American Bible such as the original Hebrew culture in the original Hebrew version, the transcripts (are they called that?) that were originally found, how and why pieces were/are canonized, and Christian history next to world history. I guess - now that I think about it - I get that from my father...the need to fully understand something and where it came from.

Well, I guess what I meant was their punishments. The extreme double standards that were/are held. Such as a woman's word is half as valuable/trustworthy than a man's, women have no intelligence because of their sex, a woman has no say so over her own body but her father/oldest relative or her husband, a woman is killed for something where a man is hardly looked at twice...ect. Not necessarily the way they were taught to not want material possession or other things like that.
Brainwashing is bad in and of itself because it's taking control over another human being, putting one's power over another life, and not allowing them to have their own thoughts/wants. For example the man (for the life of me can't think of his name) who brainwashed people into his twisted religion to isolate them away from society, kicked out young boys, married off girls as young as 12 to men in their 60's, and rapped children. Those people were brainwashed it was the way things were supposed to be, that was how they were expected to act, and they followed it. I don't know if I can vouch for how 'happy' they were, but I would definitely say it was all a bad situation. I [think I] know that kind of brainwashing wasn't what you meant...but that's what popped into my head when I read it.

You know...it was so weird. It was a tiny church. No more than 15 people in a reconstructed house. But I don't really know how that happens...I never came out and asked them why they were there, I thought it would be rude. I just listened to whatever they were talking about. The most memorable thing was the husband telling me back in their home "men are not allowed to apologize to women and never would anyways".

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-09-25 07:42:58 +0000 UTC]

Well, of course when I was talking about girls being taught not to want things, I wasn't talking about material things, because those aren't the big things women are taught not to want. It's stuff related to freedom, and to ownership itself, but not to owning specific things. Like, it's not that women are taught to not want property so much as it is women not being allowed to own it. But she's not taught to not want it, because she should want to marry a man who has property.

But truly. When you try to brush teaching aside. How bad exactly does a teaching have to get before it goes from just being unfairly restrictive to downright bad?

That brainwashing you mentioned definitely wasn't what I was thinking! I was thinking more the sexist, classist, racist and/or ethnic brainwashing people could get due to culture. OR, just the culture itself. I mean, after all, I think we are all brainwashed at least a little, because our thoughts are shaped by our culture, no matter how hard we try to stop that, and no matter how good we get as stopping that, and where did we get our culture from?
How many things do you think we all learned just because of the culture we were born under?

If you had an assignment where you HAD to envision a society where women were clearly not treated equally, but that was the main rule and you could decide exactly what inequality looked like and make the society as good as you could within that rule, what would that society look like?

And what went through your mind when the husband of the Muslim family in the little church said that?

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-09-25 23:23:58 +0000 UTC]

I’m sorry…but a lot of this post didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Lol. I’ll do my best to answer, though.

“it's not that women are taught to not want property so much as it is women not being allowed to own it. But she's not taught to not want it, because she should want to marry a man who has property”
I can’t tell if you’re defending this form of thinking or not with that paragraph.
This is reflective of how America used to be with women: their one goal in life should and was to marry and have lots of kids and serve their husbands, on top of that if he was abusive she wasn’t allowed to leave so kinda, technically not in control of her body since it now belongs o her husband, had no voice in politics or any of that, couldn’t speak against a man, ect…any want or actions outside those lines was frowned upon if not punished by general society. Yea…sure it’s a nice ‘picture perfect’ fantasy…but when it’s FORCED onto people like it was back then – or any violently more extreme form of the same restrictions - it’s not right. It becomes brainwashing when free will and thought is destroyed to force people into one single way of being under another's control and will despite what it does to those being oppressed. The actual care and compassion means nothing to just having control over them.

“But truly. When you try to brush teaching aside. How bad exactly does a teaching have to get before it goes from just being unfairly restrictive to downright bad?”
I also cannot tell where your standpoint is on this but it sounds, again, like your defending the harshness of the ‘teachings’ by trying to ask ‘how bad is bad?’. I never wanted to brush the basis of the teachings aside. Like I explained in the last comment, the teaching itself isn’t what is harmful, it’s the extremes of the actions required to follow such teachings and extremes the consequences are taken to if any amount is even remotely suspected of being disobeyed. Honestly, you can’t question taking full power and control over another human being’s body and mind to the point that one can freely (due to one’s society) cause them pain for doing or just because you’re paranoid that they did or even that they THOUGHT about something wrong…as being something bad and against the morals of human life.

“I mean, after all, I think we are all brainwashed at least a little, because our thoughts are shaped by our culture,”
Okay this…is a complicated reaction to describe, and I do not want to try because I really do not want to sound as though I am trying to insult you when I have no intention. Again…I think you’re going a bit overboard with the word ‘brainwashing’. Yea…there is a set way of thinking in a society (mine, anyways) that shapes how one tends to think instinctively, but it’s more of a predetermined bias instead of brainwashing. The way our society thinks is of no result in any religious moral teachings, or political tyranny. It’s everything to with how thing are presented to us through media, movies, commercials, advertisements, and other ways that people have freedom to create and not being forced to create for the sole purpose of controlling others. Such as women having to dress like sluts and be stick thin to be considered attractive, or ghettoes are for black people. But very…VERY few actually believe these things since most people have the ability to think about it and reform their opinions without repercussions from anyone. There is no form of punishment when one doesn’t follow the stereotypes society puts on everything. None at all. In fact, most of the time people are praised for thinking differently and demonstrating their individual intelligence. So…calling that ‘brainwashing’…just seems so…extreme on its own. Brainwashing is – again – implying a person being oppressed and overtaken in their freedoms over their own body and will, otherwise punished by extreme measures.

“and where did we get our culture from?”
Er…it’s a combination of our history, our ancestors, the most prevalent religions/morals/and general way of thinking, all of our arts and talents, entertainments, and people’s ability to create/invent/build/and on and on…
On a personal note: since part of the definition of one’s culture is a “quality” of one’s society from their achievements in arts, behavior, and the development of the individual mind through education, opinion, and creativity…I believe a big part of culture is each person’s ability to be an individual. In societies which take that away, I strongly believe the actual ‘culture’ is drastically decreased if not eradicated for power, control, and most times greed.

“where you HAD to envision a society”
Honestly, if I could imagine that kind of society…with all those beliefs against woman’s rights and freedoms…the best it could be is even though women were not allowed to do all those things, that the government takes away their power in society…that the men still care for her as a person, as his wife/sister/mother/ect…just as a living, breathing human being…and the society supported it that way in its teachings…that men did not treat them as slaves, possessions or dogs to be beaten at the slightest will, things that do not have feelings, things that can be thrown/sold away whenever the men feel like it, things that any man could take advantage of and should enjoy it instead of saying anything against them…not things that should be killed at even the smallest suspicion of not being absolutely, completely, mindless, obeying toys strictly there for the men’s enjoyment or abuse as he pleases. And that the women were not taught that this is the way the world should be and they should just accept it happily…punishable by a gruesome death or torture.

Technically, the men are taught, expected to, and held responsible for being humane to the women since they are still human beings. And everyone could have personal opinions without fear of more extreme physical punishment. That is also very important. When one’s way of THINKING is taken over in a violent manner for violent and cruel reasons…that is also a huge part of brainwashing.
Honestly, I think if we had the technology, those kinds of extreme suppressive societies in the real world would have collars or some other device on everyone to monitor thoughts…if any were out of line there would be physical repercussions.

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-09-26 04:17:06 +0000 UTC]

Okay. Now, after talking to you a little more, I just want to say that I was playing devil's advocate for brainwashing, to see what you would say. You did not lean in a direction of "everything's brainwash". You have a firm definition of brainwashing (One that makes sense) and stuck to it.

When I was asking about different, oppressive ways of living, I wasn't trying to defend any of them. You've made nothing but interesting replies so far, so I wanted to pick your brain and ask what you thought. I will admit, though, that there's always something in me that hates to demonize a people. I'm not very much of an optimist, but I do like to at least believe that every cloud has a silver lining and if something bad happens, there's almost always got to be something good that came out of it... because it's sad to go through something bad for nothing.

The only place I disagree with you is on the part you said in response to being shaped by culture. You said in there "Such as women having to dress like sluts and be stick thin to be considered attractive, or ghettoes are for black people. But very…VERY few actually believe these things " Actually, I think that's very wrong.
I don't think you realize how many people there are, especially young people, who truly believe those negative messages. Especially with us black people.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who truly do believe that black people belong in ghettos. They won't explicitly tell you this, but they believe it. And I'm not just talking about white people. I'm talking about black people, who truly believe that the ghetto is their home, it's where they should stay, the "ghetto life" is the best life for them to live, and if they left the ghetto, they'd be betraying their race. One major reason black males are virtually "immune to progress", as one expert put it, is that so many black males honestly believe that the only way for a black man to become successful legitimately, is through sports or music, and every other career was for white people. That's part of why it was so important for Obama to get elected. I don't know if you're for or against Obama, but black males needed to see that a black person could be anything. A black man could become PRESIDENT. I don't think you realize how many black black men though they could never be anything but a musician, athlete or criminal.
"There is no form of punishment when one doesn’t follow the stereotypes society puts on everything. None at all."
That's... kind of wrong. Go to the wrong neighborhood or school as a kid, and you will be bullied or otherwise punished and/or ostracized if you fit or don't fit certain stereotypes.
"most of the time people are praised for thinking differently and demonstrating their individual intelligence"?
Again, not in school! Nerds getting beat up for being brainy... Go to the wrong neighborhood or school and you'll find out that people getting beat up for being smart is more than just a stereotype. There are schools where the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. You don't start getting routinely praised for you intelligence until you get into the workplace, but by then it might be too late if you learned all your life that intelligence=beatdown, so you flunked school and did everything you could to avoid stimulating your brain.

You know what I like though? I really like your definitions of culture. A predetermined bias... That's a... I want to use the word quandary, but that's totally not the right word. That's definitely quite a thought.
Reminds me of a book I read, so I will ask you one more question.

What do you think of group oriented societies as opposed to individual oriented ones? It's not possible to create a perfect society, but it is possible I think to create a half-decent society where individuality is suppressed for the sake of the group. Sure, the heads of the group could be corrupt, but the heads of any governing body could be corrupt.

I heard a theory that one reason that Chinese culture became so family and clan oriented at an expense of individual achievement was because long ago, most people were rice farmers, and rice could not be farmed the way most crops could. You couldn't have farmers just doing their own things their own ways and have everything work. Groups of people who ordinarily might not care about each other would have to in order to manage the water supply. Individuals or small groups trying to get an edge, or just do something that was not in line with what others were doing would break the harmony. And when the harmony was broken, people would starve. I heard that harmony is such an important concept in Chinese culture because, in their history, people who didn't suppress their individual desires for the sake of harmony with people and nature literally died out. I don't know how right any of that is, though.

I also read in the book about an American who went to help a group of Native Americans, and the Native Americans thought him weirdly self-centered. He seemed to be very caring, but he seemed to them to have a massive ego because he kept using words like "I", and saying "I think" and things like that, and that in their society, you didn't do that, because life wasn't about you. It was about your family, and your tribe. They had a word for "I", and they used it, but not like we do, because their culture was different. Life wasn't ideal, but I think it was far from rotten. I don't remember when group of Native Americans it was, so I can't give more detail on them.

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-09-23 10:05:45 +0000 UTC]

Sorry it took me so long to send you this reply about our conversation. It's just that I was never in the state of mind and time that I'd need to be in to properly reply to your reply by the time I got this far down in my Inbox. I'm still not, but I wanted to send you some response to the long reply you gave me. I'll send you a proper one later, I promise!

Here it is: But don't you think that everybody's kind of brainwashed, because all of us are taught things by our parents and families as children, based on what the adults want, and as children we are too young and impressionable to even try to question it? I mean, even if we grow up to toss out the beliefs our parents taught us, still the fact that they taught us those things had a huge impact on who we became, whether we would have wanted that or not.

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-09-25 23:17:12 +0000 UTC]

Well...that really seems like taking the definition to an extreme...jumping off a ledge, you might say.
I don't really think that can be considered brainwashing, as brainwashing implies someone forces you to accept an extreme form of beliefs and actions that will cause you great distress emotionally and a lot of times physically. The same form of the kind of thinking you just described would compel that any punishment given to a child is child abuse as it makes them unhappy. I mean...could anyone really consider learning how to speak, read, write, or learning colors as brainwashing? Or teaching a child to not shove another child down a flight of stairs or other actions that could cause someone harm? You can't just have a kid then never teach it anything.
There's a line between teaching someone basic values in/of human life...and then taking that teaching to a cultural absurdity such as taking this: pushing a child down a flight of stairs is wrong because it hurts them and causes them pain, if you do that as an adult there are very bad consequences, so your grounded/have to stand in the corner/ ect...turned into this: you push a child down a flight of stairs you must break your neck out of grievance for your sin, if you do not you're a child of demons and deserve nothing other than death by all those you love crushing your head with giant stones…and making all of society accept that as a good way of life, if anyone does differently they could face death or torture and being socially shunned.

See?

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-09-25 23:29:45 +0000 UTC]

Well, things that are that universally accepted aren't the only things people teach kids, you know. There are a lot of ideas people teach kids that are much closer to- or within- the gray area. And even the way we determine something like that is wrong... I don't think all cultures assign the same value to human pain. People could form a more Spartan-ish type of society where affliction or suffering of pain isn't seen in the same negative light at all. Like some people may believe it IS a good idea to push a child down a flight of stairs because they believe that that will teach the child valuable lessons in pain, obedience, and also fighting ability, as they will learn that there's a right way to roll down steps to minimize the damage you take, there are situations where it is appropriate to push someone down the stairs, and they better be alert on staircases themselves.

Of course I don't believe any of that and you don't either, and I know that so many things are just bad. I just got to thinking... I wonder how many people there are out there that are anti-family, and that think raising a child normally is tantamount to brainwash.

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-09-26 14:12:14 +0000 UTC]

Yes, all that makes sense. And you're right...I think there are plenty of people abusing their position as a parent and 'brainwashing' their kids into acting in cruel ways.

I will respond to your other, longer reply in a bit. Haha...I have never been very good at playing devil's advocate. My dad pulls it on me all the time, though. I applaud you for that. I would also like to thank you for being so calm and level headed. It's not very often I have one of these conversations in which the other side starts cursing and calling me names after a few responses. :3 I do appreciate that you have not, even if I may have made you angry at any point. It's been very interesting.

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-09-27 06:46:24 +0000 UTC]

Well, I hope I didn't sound like I was trying to make the point about bad parenting, because I wasn't. The position of parent is the single position of authority least likely to be abused by the holder. If it weren't, all of human nature would be different! Of course, you do have lots of parents teaching their kids bad things- either directly on purpose, or indirectly through example. But I was trying to keep it from the perspective of the level of culture.

I think the reason our conversation has gone this way so far is that- other than the fact that we're both obviously more mature than that, at least a little - I actually don't agree with any of the ideas I've been "defending". I have, however, learned that just because I, personally don't agree with something doesn't make it immoral. In fact, it doesn't even make it a bad idea. How many things have I encountered in life where I thought it was a bad idea, and it turned out to be a good one? I can't count very many offhand, so I don't know, but I'm sure there are plenty.

I have also learned that even outdated or outright bad things still have good parts to them. Like, there are benefits to having a society where your job is determined by your birth. I thought about professional gymnastics, especially for females. Female gymnasts peak in their teens, or even as early as 10 years old. If you're involved in something where you have to retire from that at age 24, and reach your prime at 12, then by the time you're old enough to decide all by yourself that that's what you want to do, it's too late. You'd be past your prime by the time you made your decision, if not at "retirement age". You certainly wouldn't have enough years left to be able to compete by the time you got the necessary experience. The only way a female will be able to become a pro competitive gymnast is if her parents see something in her and throw her into a gymnastics program at age 4-6. And there are other things that serve as more useful examples of things where not only is it true that the earlier you start, the better you get at it, but it's also true that how good you ultimately get at it has a lot to do with the age you started, with age-of-starting playing such a large role that it ends up being a big chunk of the equation that can't be countered by bigger stuff on the other side. It's like, you can't become great with just talent and no practice, but also, no matter how many years you spend practicing, you won't be able to beat someone who started playing the game well at five if you didn't start until 17.

So where I was going with that stuff is this: If you have a society where a person't job is determined by their birth, that means you already know what they're going to be, so you can start grooming them to be that as soon as they're old enough to walk and talk. Sure, it's unfair, and being something like a farmer doesn't require you start so early. Teaching "Peasantry" to a peasant child just teaches them to accept their place in life and nothing better. But you see the point? It's a bad thing with a very good part right in the middle. And finding good things inside of bad ones is something I do believe in. I'm not playing devil's advocate there.

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-08-18 00:28:45 +0000 UTC]

Oh...no I don't know the language itself, although that would be super cool. I just try to study Christianity outside the Christian-American Bible like the original Hebrew Bible, the transcripts (are they called that?) that were originally found, how and why pieces are canonized, and Christian history next to world history. I guess - now that I think about it - I get that from my father...the need to fully understand something and where it came from.

Well, I guess what I meant was their punishments. The extreme double standards that were/are held. Such as a woman's word is half as valuable/trustworthy than a man's, women have no intelligence because of their sex, a woman has no say so over her own body but her father/oldest relative or her husband, a woman is killed for something where a man is hardly looked at twice...ect. Not necessarily the way they were brought to not want material possession or other things like that.
Brainwashing is bad in and of itself because it's taking control over another human being, putting one's power over another life, and not allowing them to have their own thoughts/wants. For example the man (for the life of me can't think of his name) who brainwashed people into his twisted religion to isolate them away from society, kicked out young boys, married off girls as young as 12 to men in their 60's, and rapped children. Those people were brainwashed it was the way things were supposed to be, that was how they were expected to act, and they followed it. I don't know if I can vouch for how 'happy' they were, but I would definitely say it was all a bad situation. I [think I] know that kind of brainwashing wasn't what you meant...but that's what popped into my head when I read it.

You know...it was so weird. It was a tiny church. No more than 15 people in a reconstructed house. But I don't really know how that happens...I never came out and asked them why they were there, I thought it would be rude. I just listened to whatever they were talking about. The most memorable thing was the husband telling me back in their home "men are not allowed to apologize to women and never would anyways".

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wildlittlewolf13 In reply to ToddNTheShiningSword [2012-08-17 20:47:34 +0000 UTC]

Thank you for being such a nice, understanding person about Islam It makes me happy that I finally found some people who took the time to read before they gave their opinion.

Just as there are bad Christans and Jews, there are also bad Muslims. But this is the fault of the people, not their holy books.

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ToddNTheShiningSword In reply to wildlittlewolf13 [2012-09-23 09:48:36 +0000 UTC]

I'm sorry I took so long to reply to you, but I still wanted to do it. You are right in what you said about the people, and it's sad so few of them seek knowledge before taking a serious opinion. Taking a smaller opinion with lesser potential consequences when you know you don't know much is fine. It's okay to have an opinion when you don't know much about the subject, but to judge or condemn people when you know little about them is just bad.

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Marahuta In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-17 15:55:24 +0000 UTC]

I am a Christian. But you can find the Quran online too which I read aswell. [link]

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Foxette-Faynge In reply to Marahuta [2012-08-17 19:49:02 +0000 UTC]

I'm a Christian, too. I always thought it was important to keep an open mind for learning about other subjects...no matter what the religion. :3 I have faith in myself enough to learn of others and how they live their lives without being persuaded.
Thank you for the link! ^w^

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Marahuta In reply to Foxette-Faynge [2012-08-17 19:52:29 +0000 UTC]

Just wanted to make sure you didn't mistake me for a muslim...Although, now that I think of it...my signature would've taken care of that XD

You're welcome
God bless,

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Medlilove [2012-08-17 13:50:49 +0000 UTC]

This is so impressive, I think it's important to know how important Mary and Jesus were in the Qu'ran, very deserving DD x

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AliTalahi In reply to Medlilove [2012-08-17 18:38:10 +0000 UTC]

Believe it or not, the name of Jesus (PBUH) was mentioned 25 times in Qu'ran, and there's a whole chapter in Qu'ran entitled Maryam (Mary).
While the name of Mohamed (SAAS) was only mentioned 4 times.

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Medlilove In reply to AliTalahi [2012-08-17 19:25:40 +0000 UTC]

I know! It really is fascinating!

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CitizenXCreation In reply to Medlilove [2012-08-17 14:43:33 +0000 UTC]

I think you missed the message.

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Medlilove In reply to CitizenXCreation [2012-08-17 16:26:13 +0000 UTC]

actually, I know this isn't the meaning of the image, it's just that you don't often see the connection between jesus and mary and Islam everyday and I found it interesting and felt like sharing

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Medlilove In reply to CitizenXCreation [2012-08-17 16:21:57 +0000 UTC]

which is what?

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CitizenXCreation In reply to Medlilove [2012-08-17 16:35:40 +0000 UTC]

It shows the struggle two average people have while reaching out to people. One looking for customers, the other followers.

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pepperlicious In reply to CitizenXCreation [2012-08-17 15:20:07 +0000 UTC]

What's the message? I don't get this..

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CitizenXCreation In reply to pepperlicious [2012-08-17 15:31:03 +0000 UTC]

The person before me, the one in which I replied to was viewing this piece as promoting religion. This piece is not promoting religion, it merely shows the struggle of two average people trying to reach out to people. One looking for customers, the other followers.

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pepperlicious In reply to CitizenXCreation [2012-08-17 15:32:17 +0000 UTC]

Ohh yeah that's what I saw it as too. 'Kay thanks..

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CitizenXCreation In reply to pepperlicious [2012-08-17 16:03:06 +0000 UTC]

Any time, stranger.

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Vainamoinenian In reply to CitizenXCreation [2012-08-17 15:16:33 +0000 UTC]

I wish this was facebook, so I could "like" your comment

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LunaPeachieWasHere In reply to ??? [2012-08-17 13:36:27 +0000 UTC]

How deliciously contradicting...

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wagn18 In reply to ??? [2012-08-17 13:30:50 +0000 UTC]

This is incredible. Really great shot.

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