Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr—Islam: Truth and Beauty

On September 6, 2012, the BYU Museum of Art's auditorium and overflow seating were filled to capacity with eager students, faculty, and community members who gathered to hear from the renowned Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr. His presentation, Islam: Truth and Beauty, was given in connection to the museum's exhibition Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture to help audience members better understand how the "truth of anything—is always related to beauty." This significant lecture was co-sponsored by BYU's Wheatley Institution as part of its Distinguished Lecture in International Affairs series.

I think this unfortunately gets into the contentious and emotional area of religion which is definitely not one of Psiencequest's areas of discourse. The basic problem is that religion, unlike the usual subject matters of paranormal phenomena and UFOs and Intelligent Design, involves deeply believed in by faith ancient teachings in holy books, in particular the poisonous area of there being many with strong belief in fundamentalist and literal interpretations of these texts including supposedly recorded utterances of the founders of these religions, which may call for killing or enslaving of unbelievers and for other what are now considered atrocities.

I am trying to be delicate here, but debate over the contrasts between more modern and "spiritual" interpretations of these ancient texts and fundamentalist literal interpretations doesn't seem to be appropriate for Psiencequest. I don't think we should touch this even with a ten-foot pole. I also think this should apply to another post of a new thread in this specific area, at https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-s...6#pid58256 .

[Laird]

@nbtruthman and @Sciborg_S_Patel I've split nbtruthman's response out into a new thread in the opt-in forums: [split] Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr—Islam: Truth and Beauty. It was way too overtly political and especially contentiously so for the public forums.

I thought @nbtruthman  was pretty respectful, but yeah I guess this is a discussion that can get too political.

I do generally try to avoid anything that speaks too closely to an insistence on how any religion should be practiced, which I can see as being too contentious.

I didn't find the lectures I posted by Nasr to be in that direction, more just a general lecture about how a religion sees things. However each person's mileage will vary, and I'll try to be more careful as well to make sure we don't become a forum arguing about how a religion should be practiced.

[Laird]

I thought @nbtruthman  was pretty respectful

Yep, hence "contentious" rather than "disrespectful", although, potentially, those who strongly disagree with those contentious views could perceive them as disrespectful.

In any case, I wasn't trying to shut down the complaint, and you're both welcome to continue the back-and-forth in the split-out thread, but on the other hand, if you both already consider the situation resolved, then that's fine too.

Yep, hence "contentious" rather than "disrespectful", although, potentially, those who strongly disagree with those contentious views could perceive them as disrespectful.

In any case, I wasn't trying to shut down the complaint, and you're both welcome to continue the back-and-forth in the split-out thread, but on the other hand, if you both already consider the situation resolved, then that's fine too.

Ah I didn't mean it as a challenge to you either, I just didn't want anyone to think there was any bad blood here.

Everything resolved on my end.

Psiencequest doesn't have, nor does it allow "bad blood"!