2012-09-16, 08:06 | Link #23701 | ||
Juanita/Kiteless
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
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Jews are a race of people and also a type of people based on religious affiliation. This text from wikipedia supports what I just said: Quote:
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2012-09-16, 08:25 | Link #23702 | |
Um-Shmum
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: at GNR, bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts
Age: 39
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2012-09-16, 09:15 | Link #23703 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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If anything, Haredi Jews are crazier then muslims. They're certainly a lot more sexist.
Anyway, I think it's wrong to single out Islam as a particularly violent religion, there are many muslim countries that are not particularly violent at all (Malaysia and Indonesia come to mind, though there are a few incidents). Islam is not the only violent religion in existence. Even Buddhism has been behind a lot of religious violence. Almost every major insurrection in China has been driven by Buddhist cults like the White Lotus, and in Japan there was also the Ikko-Ikki. And while people seem to have warm fuzzy feelings towards the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism, before the communist takeover that country was positively feudal. Also, if we describe a religion as being a particular type of worldview, then I think you'll find that most Christians and Jews are no longer really Christian or Jewish anymore, most of them would ascribe to world views like "liberalism" "conservatism" and "socialism". And of course, these secular world views have had their fair share of killing. Liberalism had Robespierre and the French revolutionary wars. Socialism (or more particularly Communism, it's extreme cousin) has a rich history of oppression and mass murder, and as for conservatism, almost every dictator in existence has been ostensibly been a conservative. The only people left whose world views are dominated by Christianity and Judaism (people like the Haredi, or Westboro baptist church), are just as bad as radical Islam in terms of violence and prickliness. And of course we're ignoring the elephant in room here, Nationalism, which has been responsible for more deaths and genocides in the last 200 years then any other political ideology. So perhaps you think it's a degenerate sign that Muslims will kill and riot over insults to the prophet, but how about the fact that many people in the USA think flag burning should be an arrestable offence? I don't really see much difference here, in either case people are being arrested over insults to symbols. And of course, look at what's going on in China right now with rioters destroying Japanese businesses? I don't see how this is any different from what's going on in the Middle East. In this case, the Chinese are being motivated by the most violent religion of all, Nationalism, which the CCP has gone to great lengths to encourage in their citizenry. |
2012-09-16, 09:54 | Link #23704 | |||
勇者
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Tesla Leicht Institute
Age: 34
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I am not going to say anything about this topic after this
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They shouldn't be honored at all.
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2012-09-16, 09:58 | Link #23705 | |||||
Meh
Join Date: Feb 2008
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The only reason Japan did not succumb to the Mongols was purely through the grace of geography, or do you honestly believe that the Mongols would not have been able to steamroll Japan if it wasn't separated by the sea? Quote:
Oh? then what was this? Quote:
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2012-09-16, 11:39 | Link #23706 | |
Juanita/Kiteless
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
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Unfortunately, yes, the world has all types of people who tend to be violent. There are extremists of all sorts. Certainly, there are many who were violent extremists who weren't religious (btw, I'm not anti-religious, I stick up for religion in anti-religion debates and I'm very spiritual). We discussed Islam and violence, but all three Abrahamic religions have this problem. It is just that Judaism and Christianity have, for the most part, overcome some big hurdles in regards to these things. They haven't removed the problem of some of their members fighting and killing in the name of God, but things sure got better with all that. Also, please don't say those westboro baptist church losers are following Christianity more closely than all other Christians. Please, don't. Those people are, in fact, going about it worse than all other types of Christians. It is very simple. Those people just do not align with Jesus Christ. Not even close. They align with the lord of evil instead. And about the Dalai Lama, Tibet, and the feudal setup: The Tibetan people want every bit of that setup back if it meant the Chinese ceasing to oppress them. They want their land back. They want their homes back. They want their rights back. They want the lives of those who were murdered to be back. They want the thousands of monasteries, many of which which were historically important or held importance within their religion, to be back (the number of destroyed monasteries is well over 6,000). They want their way of life and culture to once again take place in their homeland and no longer be in jeopardy of ceasing to be in a matter decades.
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Last edited by Urzu 7; 2012-09-16 at 11:57. |
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2012-09-16, 11:53 | Link #23707 |
Me, An Intellectual
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: UK
Age: 33
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Well Islam can't really do anything about that. It's a set of beliefs passed down by a book. It can't force anyone to interpret it the correct way so it's mostly the people's problem.
I think that's mostly because most muslim/arab countries still happen to be deeply socially conservative, parochial and (regardless of the history) toxically anti-American rather than anything else (as well as a culture desensitised to violence through simple history rather than religion)
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2012-09-16, 12:15 | Link #23708 | |
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
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As for the "Islam" problem, consider it a modernity problem. Even the Holy Qur'an in all its infallibility is only as good or bad as the people that read it. If anything the religion as a whole took a few step backwards over the centuries with first the relative decline of the vibrant Sufi mysticism of the "Golden Age" and the early Ottomans, the fossilization of an increasingly conservative ulama scholarly class who saw the arrival of the modern world as a threat, and then, to make things worse, the 19th, 20th and 21st century phenomenon of a challenge to this already conservative traditional religious authority from the reactionary side, even the now "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood was once one such radical group. Al-Azhar scholars view Wahhabism and Salafism with probably more contempt than you and I (and being Sunni scholars they lol @ Iranian imams' fatwa), but the new generation of religious fanatics and televangelists on Arab TV stations pay them no heed, and it's pushing the traditional ulama increasingly reactionary to "keep up." Of course, all of this is fundamentally an expression of rage at the dislocation that rapidly changing societies produce. Idiots, you can say, shooting all the wrong targets, and I have little sympathy for murderers and fanatics, but their rage itself isn't very hard to comprehend. Until very, very recently there was not even a "democracy" or "public sphere" safety gauge to vent. |
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2012-09-16, 12:58 | Link #23709 | ||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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When I meet a modern Irishman, he may or may not believe in god, but when he views the world, he is not viewing it in the way catholicism says to view it. He freely uses contraception, laughs at jesus parodies and generally doesn't think about religion all that much. The issues that enflame his interest are not related to Christian teachings, but secular ones. Now go back 40 years, and everyone viewed things in the Catholic way, and our country was bigoted and repressive. We had an active censor constantly on the prowl for Blasphemy, and the arch-bishop of Dublin was more influential then any other public figure. Our schools were Catholic schools, taught by priests and nuns, and they taught all manner of backwards things. Christianity never "mellowed out", more people are just less Christian, it's very rare these days to meet people whose entire lives and views are shaped by their faiths in a western country, and when you do find such people, they are little different from the Muslims that so many criticize, be they Jewish, Christian, Communist or Fascist(I think to be a Communist requires a level of faith equal to being a Christian). People who form their beliefs on dogma (of any kind) tend to end out taking an intolerant attitude to others, ultimately resulting in violence on a massive scale. This is not a problem unique to Islam, but common to all dogmas. Doesn't matter if your prophet is Jesus, Mohammed, Moses or Marx. That said, there's good elements to many of these things, taken in moderation. It's only when your thoughts are consumed by these ideas, that you begin to see the people who don't adhere to them as being first unfortunate, then dysfunctional, then evil, then out to kill you. That is the end result of extreme chauvinistic faith. If you truly believe your beliefs are the path to all that is good and righteous, then logically, those who do not practice them, or worse openly reject them, are evil. Quote:
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2012-09-16, 15:25 | Link #23710 | |
Unspecified
Scanlator
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Unspecified
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Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike
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i think is better to make new threads for current conflict. one for middle east and other for China-Japan
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2012-09-16, 16:01 | Link #23711 | |
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
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The exercise was planned long in coming, before Netanyahu went off the deep end. It's done to show Iran that the Western powers have the capability to reopen the Straits, yes, but not because the West is rallying to war. If that's the case, putting all those naval assets in the restricted Gulf region before starting one is war criminal level idiocy. And of course, nobody wants war. Obama rebuffed Netanyahu; Britain signals the same thing. Not even Israel, which is by now full of people increasingly hysterical over their prime minister going hysterical, want a war. And...battleships? What battleships? Nobody in the world operates battleships. Even the Iowas are already decommissioned once and for all. Only Russia operates a battlecruiser (well, 3 rusting somewhere and 1 active), and it's just a very big missile cruiser. I don't like the way news articles like this are going. War fever can shove it. The Muslim world is already spooked enough. |
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2012-09-16, 18:24 | Link #23712 |
AS Oji-kun
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
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It's the Telegraph, the voice of Tory Britain for decades. The Telegraph is the "high-Tory" paper, while the tabloid Daily Mail targets a more "middle-brow" conservative audience. Murdoch's The Sun is a mass-appeal paper much like his US property the New York Post.
I noticed that the New York Times has no story that I can find on these maneuvers. An article in yesterday's International Herald Tribune about the Senkaku conflict observes that Tuesday is the anniversary of the 1931 Mukden incident* which began the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. This event is depicted in episode seven of Senkou no Night Raid and was considered so controversial that it was only shown on the web. Sounds like we should be seeing another round of anti-Japanese demonstrations in a couple of days. The IHT reports a disturbing comment late last week from "the state-run Beijing Evening News [that] China should use nuclear weapons in the dispute, claiming it would be 'simpler.'" __________ *Having read the description of this event, I thought I recalled a scene in a videogame where a railroad station was bombed. Sure enough, it's in the first installment of the JRPG Shadow Hearts. The time period is all wrong, as the game takes place before World War I, but the first time you meet Marguerite (the personification of the famous spy "Mata Hari") she is bombing a railway station in Manchuria.
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Last edited by SeijiSensei; 2012-09-16 at 18:54. |
2012-09-16, 18:30 | Link #23713 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Age: 40
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...ran-middleeast
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration asked for more trouble after the war threats and the entire media coverage about what happens in Syria, I think they just did on both fronts. What are they thinking by going public with that, I really don't know. Quote:
I add my voice to RRW's in order to create a separate thread for the current crises. |
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2012-09-16, 18:33 | Link #23714 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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George Will slaps the Romney campaign with a reality trout about the Islamic protests and hits the nail on the head:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...usaolp00000009 Quote:
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2012-09-16, 18:39 | Link #23715 | |
Unspecified
Scanlator
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Unspecified
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well actually my friend post it on FB so i think i found it intersting
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2012-09-16, 18:46 | Link #23716 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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The closer equivalent to Fox news in the UK is actually The Times, and Sky News, which are owned by Rupert Murdoch (as is Fox). Any bias in any of these is pretty small beans compared to Fox though. As for that article, it is a bit sensationalistic, in my experience the Telegraph is not usually that sensationalist. |
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2012-09-16, 18:51 | Link #23717 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Age: 40
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About the article itself, I guess we should ask the editor-in-chief why they added sensationalism here and now. |
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2012-09-16, 19:20 | Link #23720 | |
AS Oji-kun
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
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Market researchers in Britain still apparently use the same alphabetical class categories that they did when I was studying British politics back in the 1970s. Groups "A" and "B" are the top of the class distribution; they have traditionally been the target audience of the Telegraph. The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian, was the voice of traditional British liberalism and appeals to the more left-wing members of AB, and the managerial middle-class in C1. In historical terms these forces are best represented by their leaders in the 1880s, the Conservative Disraeli and the Liberal Gladstone. The Labour paper in Britain has traditionally been the Daily Mirror which competes against the Mail and Sun. Labour recruits from the various working-class categories, C2, D and E, though the C2 group often gave a substantial share of its support to the Conservatives and were the focus of many scholarly discussions about the roots of "working-class conservatism" in the 1960's and 1970's. The American equivalent of this conundrum is working-class support for the Republicans as discussed in books like Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?. Kansas, by the way, is considering whether to bar President Obama's name from the November ballot on the grounds he had a Kenyan father. (Despite the claims of Donald Trump and others, there is no question that Obama is constitutionally eligible to be the President.) "Birthers" conveniently overlook the fact that Mitt Romney's father George was born in Mexico after Mitt's grandfather moved there to avoid prosecution for polygamy. Being white Mitt need not provide any additional documentation whatsoever.
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Last edited by SeijiSensei; 2012-09-16 at 19:40. |
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current affairs, discussion, international |
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