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France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders after at least 40 people were killed in multiple shootings in Paris.
At least 15 people were killed near the Bataclan arts centre, where up to 60 people are being held hostage. Explosions and gunfire are reported.
Three people were killed in an attack near the Stade de France, with some reports suggesting a suicide blast.
Paris authorities have urged people to stay indoors.
Military personnel are being deployed across Paris.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/13/455943961/violence-reported-in-paris
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/world/paris-shooting/index.html
Update #1 [BBC updates]:
Scores of people have been killed in multiple gun and bomb attacks in Paris
At least 100 people are reported to have died inside the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris
Others died in attacks near the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany, and at restaurants
France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders
Paris residents have been asked to stay indoors and military personnel are being deployed across the city
[...] Reuters. quoting an un-named official at Paris City Hall, says the current death toll in Paris is around 140.
According to the Paris prosecutor, of the four assailants who died during the sidge at the Bataclan, three committed suicide by detonating explosive vests. The prosecutor has warned that some of their accomplices may "still be on the loose".
[...] Here is what French president François Hollande told reporters outside the Bataclan concert hall just now: "To all those who have seen these awful things, I want to say we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless. Because when terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities they must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together and does not let itself be moved, even if today we express infinite sorrow."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @11:54PM
Isn't multiculturalism great? #refugeeswelcome
(Score: 4, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:05AM
I picked up a recent version of TIME magazine, and of course it was shilling for the refugees. One of the reasons why it said that Europe should accept the refugees...get this...was because immigrants are great innovators and cited Sergei Brin as an example.
Perhaps one of those able-bodied unskilled military-aged males could invent the next suitcase-clock and stimulate the economy.
I warned you all about this, but you dismissed me as a racist. Who's the racist now?! Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAH. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAWWWWWW!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:17AM
cited Sergei Brin as an example
Because Syrians are exactly like Russians, right? I mean, think of all those large Syrian tech companies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:04AM
> Who's the racist now?! Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAH. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAWWWWWW!
Still you.
But now you are also one of those people taking pleasure in the murder of innocents because you think their deaths have made you a better person.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:25AM
Do you read any of Tom Kratman's work? Try 'The Caliphate'. If the west doesn't grow some balls, and put their house in order, that's where we're going.
"East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet." Ehhh, that may or may not remain true, but the collision will be devastating if it happens.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:29AM
I think you need some better terms than "east" and "west".
When you say "east", I think of China. China is NOT friendly to Muslims, or religion in general, and overall doesn't even like diversity; they're all about the Han dominating everything in their corner of the world and they don't care much about minorities' feelings.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:56AM
While there are some definite tensions, much of that has been the result of political interference. This is not JUST some religious disagreement, it is about repeated wrongs on both sides. Playing the "us vs. them" card is short sighted and will result in more death. It seems almost prophetical that one religion would have a "prophet" urging us to turn the other cheek, while the other has a "prophet" urging to war. It's like this collision has been fated to happen for 2000 years. You know what they say, learn history or be doomed to repeat it. I think the people back when weren't so dumb, and could see what was happening and where it would lead. We need to drop the vengeance and start working things out. There will be bumps, there will be bruises, but turn the other cheek and persevere. From a generational perspective eventually the children will recognize the bullshit and we can continue on as humanity, without the divisive need to fight over who breaks which end of the egg first.
I've met many a muslim who was a fine example of human, and many a christian I'm proud to call friend. If you're stuck in the tribal mentality, then please don't venture beyond a few miles and stay off the internet where your small minded concerns can affect a disproportionate number of people.
As for the tragedies of our age I have no answer, except it is the by-product of this divisive bullshit. Personally I sense a greater threat from the war mongers, trying to provoke the tribal mentality for their own gain.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:49AM
Ahhhhh. So, you see Islam as just a religion. Some of us don't. Islam is a political system, as well as a theology, all wrapped up into one. Islam is what Catholicism was during the Holy Roman Empire. To Islam, Erdogan and Turkey are apostate, and must be destroyed. To Islam, Syria and Assad are apostate. Iraq and Saddam were apostate, and now Syria and it's present government are apostate.
And, all western governments are apostate as well.
You, and people who think like you, should study Islam to know it better.
I, and people who think like me should also study Islam, so that we can better express those things we know.
Islam does NOT WANT TO COEXIST WITH ANYONE OR ANYTHING except Islam. If you understand Islam, then you will also understand how foolish that view of coexistence is.
I can't say that Islam is any better or any worse than any other political system, but I can definitely say that Islam is incompatible with any other political system.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:04AM
Sorry, but I'm not as clueless as you think I am. I fully understand that there are extremists on both sides. I have heard my fill of fear based speculation, and being a mostly rational person I have recognized that tourists around the world have not been systematically murdered upon entering a muslim dominated country. I have met quite a few co-existent muslims. The ones you refer to are EXTREMISTS, much like the christian extremists that want all gays, unmarried couples, and non-believers to BURN IN HELL. There are horrible quotes in every "sacred text", but by and large most people toss out the insanity and stick to the useful / helpful bits.
Christianity is the same political system, being utilized in elections across the board. Truly, the only real difference between the two seems to be that Christianity clings to the "turn the other cheek" propaganda, while Islamists cling to the "kill the infidel" propaganda. Neither holds true. Many Christians advocate murder, as do Islamists. However, the majority of BOTH sides just want to get along and have no agenda for murder. Simple stats, easily corroborated by the LACK of daily news stories regarding religious murder across the world.
I'm sure you will point out that more death has occurred in the name of Islam, but to counterpoint I will say that Western culture has simply hidden the religious fervor behind statehood and the same atrocities have been enacted with a mix of economic, political, and religious backing. In fact, Western culture has been responsible for MUCH more death. The "collateral" damage alone over the last decade is orders of magnitude greater than the tragedy unfolding in France, yet it gets swept away under the guise of "war" instead of "terrorism".
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:14AM
I didn't mean to imply that you are clueless - your posts have been intelligent. But, an intelligent person can be misguided, and even deluded. My suggestion that you and I BOTH try to understand Islam better wasn't the stab that you seem to take it for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:25PM
> Islam does NOT WANT TO COEXIST WITH ANYONE OR ANYTHING except Islam.
There is no compulsion in religion [wikipedia.org]
-- Quran 2:256
Say, "The truth is from your Lord": Let him who will believe, and let him who will, reject it"
-- Quran 18:29
And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?
-- Quran 10:99
For you is your religion, and for me is my religion.
-- Quran 109:6
Therefore do remind, for you are only a reminder. You are not a watcher over them;
-- Quran 88:21
He said, "O my people have you considered: if I should be upon clear evidence from my Lord while He has given me mercy from Himself but it has been made unapparent to you, should we force it upon you while you are averse to it?
-- Quran 11:28
None of those quotes are cherry-picked to leave out contradicting context, it is a universal principle in the quran from all time periods in the book with many more examples beyond just those citations. That is unlike the quotes extremists like you typically use to justify your claims about islam being inherently incompatible with anybody else.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:08PM
Uh-huh. And, Islam is the people, not the book. Just as Christianity is the people, not the book. It has been pointed out repeatedly in this discussion that people of all faiths can find something in their book to justify the hatred.
Islam, today, is a virulent disease, spreading around the world, and destroying anything and everything that stands in it's way.
Christianity seemed to be a very similar disease at one point in time. Today, it is far less virulent. Today, Islam is a danger to you, to me, to every man and woman in the world. That includes innocent young fools attending a concert.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:18PM
> Uh-huh. And, Islam is the people, not the book.
By that logic, islam is not a threat all. Since 99.999% have never hurt anyone.
Go ahead make up some new metric to justify your bullshit. It is any port in a storm with guys like you anyway.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:25PM
No new metric needed. Watch, listen, and learn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry3NzkAOo3s [youtube.com]
I'm not sure how "smart" Brigitte is, but she does have insight and wisdom going for her.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:43PM
Yay, yet another gamergater citing a random obscure youtube video of some bigot because they are incapable of articulating, or even having, their own beliefs.
So to summarize:
Islam is incompatible with everybody
o Except for what the Quran says
o Except for what 99.999% of muslims actually do
No, instead a religion of a billion people is defined by the handful of extremists. That makes you a neo-nazi white nationalist since however peaceful you are, those guys define you.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:09PM
Call it however you wish to call it. I fully expect you to dismiss these links because of the sources. The facts won't be changed, of course, just because you refuse to believe them.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christians.in.niger.struggle.to.rebuild.70.churches.destroyed.by.islamic.militants/60160.htm [christiantoday.com]
http://www.ibtimes.com/indonesia-muslim-christian-conflict-aceh-churches-destroyed-sectarian-tension-rises-2146304 [ibtimes.com]
http://shoebat.com/2014/01/24/muslims-destroy-248-christian-churches/ [shoebat.com]
http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/nearly-200-christian-churches-destroyed-in-surge-of-violence/ [wnd.com]
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/16/destroy-all-churches/#content [washingtontimes.com]
http://imb.org/updates/storyview.aspx?StoryID=9450 [imb.org]
http://www.csw.org.uk/2015/10/27/news/2844/article.htm [csw.org.uk]
This last one makes no mention of Muslims or of Islam - but I suspect that Muslims are responsible.
http://myocn.net/albanian-government-attempts-destruction-of-orthodox-church/ [myocn.net]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:14PM
> The facts won't be changed, of course, just because you refuse to believe them.
Ditto.
The facts remain that 99.999% of muslims haven't hurt anyone. Tthat you can find instances of some muslims hurting people doesn't change that fact. Just like I can find plenty of cases of white nationalists hurting people in the US that doesn't say anything meaningful about white americans.
> This last one makes no mention of Muslims or of Islam - but I suspect that Muslims are responsible.
Of course you suspect that. Do you even hear yourself?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:26PM
And, where did you pull that 99.9% figure from? Your ass, of course. BTW - the "innocents" are not as innocent as you would like to believe. People are sending various kinds of support to the terrorists. Some of the terror organizations are awash in cash. Imams around the world are telling their followers that they should send donations to this or that terror group. That increases the number of terrorists by an order of magnitude, at leas.
And, when you get down to it, you still haven't explained how Islam and Sharia law are compatible with any other religion, government, or justice system in the world. Fact is, Islam is INCOMPATIBLE with any other civilization or culture in existence today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:49PM
> And, where did you pull that 99.9% figure from?
It is a figure of speech. You are welcome, encouraged, in fact demanded to prove otherwise. If that's not an accurate representation then lets see you come up with a number that does meet your high standard of accuracy. Otherwise quit running your mouth.
> you still haven't explained how Islam and Sharia law are compatible with any other religion,
Really? Those lines of scripture weren't enough for you?
Oh I get it, you are just running in circles. The religion is compatible, except what the scriptures says, oh the people are incompatible except what the people actually do, oh the minority is incompatible because the minority defines the majorty, oh the religion is incompatible execpt what the scriptures say....
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:16PM
Circles? Yeah, maybe. Once again, the religion and political structure are composed of PEOPLE. We have our own documents, which include the constitution of the United States. Our elected officials claim to support and/or represent that document, but so many of those officials desecrate that document with every breath they take. Bush and Cheney for example.
You want a quote on the number of incompatible Muslims? Take your pick -
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2004/08/muslim-american-activist-fifty-percent-of-muslims-worldwide-support-extremists [jihadwatch.org]
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/opinion-polls.htm [thereligionofpeace.com]
The site most agreeable to your claim says that 7 percent of Muslims support extremists:
https://encounteringislam.org/misconceptions [encounteringislam.org]
Then again, maybe the results vary with how the question is posed:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/shocking-new-study-reveals-just-how-many-muslims-support-isis-and-its-frightening/ [westernjournalism.com]
And, at the end of the day, logic and rationalism plays little if any role in the debate. Islam plays on poeple's fears, superstitions, and lack of education. Much of Islam denies education to women, and restricts the education of men, for a reason. The uneducated and ignorant are much more malleable than educated and sophisticated people. The Catholic church knew that, and capitalized on it for hundreds of years.
Islam is incompatible with English Common Law, Napoleonic Law, the Code of Hammurabi, Roman or Greek law - every legal system known to the western world. Islam is incompatible with every form of government that the western world has ever experimented with. Incompatible. One has to choose to be blind to fail to understand that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:33PM
> Circles? Yeah, maybe.
No, definitely. I can't believe you wrote that and still went on to do it.
> You want a quote on the number of incompatible Muslims?
Nice pivot from harming someone to "support for extremism"
First off, numbers for actually harming someone - murder rate in the US 5 per 100,000, in Indonesia the largest muslim country 1 per 100,000. Turks, Egyptans, Malayasians 2-4 per 100,000. Catholic Brazil 15+ per 100,000, Catholic Venezuela 50+ per 100,000.
1 per 100,000 that works out to 99.998%
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/no-islam-isn-t-inherently-violent-and-the-math-proves-it.html [thedailybeast.com]
Now to address your pivot, what you left out are comparisons.
Bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians:
Americans: 46% never justified
5 largest muslim countries: 74-86% never justified
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0223/p09s01-coop.html [csmonitor.com]
When is it justified for individuals or small groups to target and kill civilans
Israel: 73% never justified
Palestine: 84% never justified
http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/MideastViolence010808Graph4.gif [gallup.com]
When is it justified for the military to target and kill civilians:
American Muslims: 78% never, 21% sometimes
American Protestants: 38% never, 58% sometimes
When is it justified for small groups to target and kill civlians?
American Muslims: 89% never, 11% sometimes
American Protestants: 71% never, 26% sometimes
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/a-fascinating-look-at-the-political-views-of-muslim-americans/242975/ [theatlantic.com]
So even by your very own criteria, islam is more compatible than you are. Time for you to save the world and convert.
> And, at the end of the day, logic and rationalism plays little if any role in the debate.
you know yourself so well.
> Islam is incompatible...
blah blah blah more proof by assertion. All that is you wishing as hard as you can for something that isn't true. Because if you are wrong you'd have to face some harsh realities about yourself.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:43PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deera_Square [wikipedia.org]
The worst excesses of the Christian religion, from all of history, distilled, and carried out on a weekly basis. All the worst crimes of Judaism, ditto. Plus, perhaps, all of the worst of Hinduism. Sanctimonious and fearful superstitious fools, murdering people by the scores and the hundreds, to protect their false beliefs in some crazy moon god. And, they will kill every man, woman, and child on earth to protect their belief.
It is incompatible with any other way of life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:23PM
Lol. You are such a cliche. "Moon god" lololol.
Yeah public executions. What other country executes people? Oh yeah.
You could not have made a stronger capitulation as to the emptiness of your arguments if you had just stood up like a man said you were wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:26PM
Well, 99.999, if you have 1 billion people who are muslim, that would mean 999,990,000 are non-violent normal people going about their lives, like you do. 10,000 are violent extremists.
I doubt there are that many violent [muslim] extremists actually. Like all those ISIS/ISIL people, they don't really seem to have any interest in islam, and more seem like those warlords or child soldier armies that run around in africa.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 15 2015, @05:03AM
If that be true - then why has Islam not crushed those war lords for defaming the real Islam? And, where do those dirt poor war lords get the weapons used to torture, rape and kill their fellow Africans? I suggest that the rest of Islam is quite happy to see those apostates punishing the infidels. That whole "enemy of mine enemy" thing, with Chrisians, Hindus, animists, and the worshippers of other gods being the greater enemy.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday November 15 2015, @03:34AM
And why are the ~80% who are peaceful people not doing something to restrain the ~20% who are not?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday November 15 2015, @03:26AM
All religions go through an early stage where they coerce membership and kill off the competition. All other major religions have outgrown this and learned to get along in a world where they're not the sole option. But Islam never outgrew its coercive stage, and seems to be built to ensure that it never will.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Sunday November 15 2015, @08:07PM
It is going through this right now. Muslims are being murdered by other Muslims MUCH more than any other group.
Also, I would like to point out that no religion has fully outgrown this. There are radical members in every group. Christianity, Judaism, hell even Buddhism!! Muslims have the stage right now for at least a few reasons: their countries have been messed with by almost all foreign powers so they have a lot of animosity especially towards the "West", and they are the largest religious group in the world so by default they have more of an impact.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday November 15 2015, @08:31PM
Being messed with in the present doesn't explain over a thousand years of Muslims behaving in more or less the same way.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday November 16 2015, @09:42PM
The Roman Empire, the Crusades, etc.
Long running feud that has mostly occurred in the Middle East. For a while they were able to take over some of Europe. "Repeat after me, stereotypes are bad!" While they are sometimes statistically valid over a population, applying them in every situation with a group of people is 100% going to result in problems.
You claim they all want to kill us, so the solution is something something all Muslims something something. Doesn't much matter what you choose, its not the right course. Welcoming arms for all? Silly idea, some will be extremists and use that chance to hurt you. Violence and segregation for all? Silly idea, some are great people who will become bitter at being treated unfairly.
ENDGAME: The world isn't black and white, and it takes courage to try and approach each and every situation with an open mind. That doesn't mean acceptance, that means being open to the idea that each person could be good or bad and to try and act accordingly.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:13PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2iBZkODgxA [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:06AM
The fault isn't that France is multi-cultural; the problem is that the people doing this are not.
And monoculturalism isn't the solution... its what creates the people causing these problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:10AM
Yes, because other monocultures are just as violent. I remember just recently that terrorist attack in über-monocultural Japan... Oh wait, no I don't. Because monoculturalism is the solution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:15AM
dude, I just started a new job and am really busy. get that monoculture the hell away from me.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by pe1rxq on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:17AM
Nothing bad ever happens in monocultures..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:25AM
Nothing bad ever happens in monocultures
"Things I never claimed for $100, Alex."
Also,
>1995
This was TWENTY YEARS AGO and nothing of note has happened since.
Whoops! [wikipedia.org]
Whoops! [wikipedia.org]
Whoops! [wikipedia.org]
That's just a few of the attacks this year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:54PM
OK, so are you saying that having pluralistic society foments violence? Your examples are from France and the United States. What ought those countries to do to make themselves more like Japan or China? If there's to be a single culture, whose culture shall that be which prevails? What shall be done about those people who weren't raised in the dominant culture? Shall laws be enacted to encourage them to at least appear to subscribe to the winning culture? Shall they be segregated from the rest of society, whether in specially reserved lands or in prisons? Perhaps they could be sent back to Africa (assuming the African culture isn't the one chosen for the USA or France). Obviously the surest solution is to kill them, but that is somewhat at odds with the goal of diminishing violence. Even the non-lethal measures might be resisted—violently, even—by some as too harsh. I have the impression that conformity is highly valued in Japan and China, but less valued in France and the United States. The homogenization effort might be opposed even by those who won't themselves need re-education or expulsion.
When I think of efforts to establish a homogeneous culture or populace, the USSR, South Africa during apartheid [wikipedia.org], Germany under the Nazis, and present-day Israel come to mind.
In the USSR, members of the most popular religion, the Russian Orthodox church, were killed or imprisoned for their beliefs, and many Orthodox churches were closed and looted.[1]
In South Africa, a minority of the population took away the citizenship and voting rights of the majority, and were banished to designated territories, the bantustans (one thing the bantustans had going for them was that they could have casinos—this reminds me of America).
In Israel a similar thing has been done: the majority of the people have been stripped of their political rights and forced off their lands into designated territories, so as to create a state where a religious minority is in control.
In all of those societies, there was tremendous violence as part of the homogenization efforts, and in the latter two, violence in opposition to homogenization.
[1] http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/anti.html [loc.gov]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:46AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes [wikipedia.org]
If we could segregate all people of different cultures, send them to different planets through wormholes, and then permanently close the wormholes so that interaction was no longer possible, maybe "everyone thinks exactly the same as everyone else, and considers everyone to be of the same tribe" would work okay ... in the short term.
In the medium-to-long-term, it's still a shitty plan, because people naturally break themselves up into different tribes, and those tribes will go to war if the people making the decisions are mental midgets. The famous "chimp war" Jane Goodall observed was the result of a community breaking in two and the larger splinter group completely exterminating the smaller splinter group. This type of self-inflicted misery befalls humans as well when our leaders are as dumb as chimps. The only real solution is "make sure as few people as possible are mental midgets, especially those in leadership roles", where "not a mental midget" includes respecting all other people as full humans with the full complement of human rights. I guess you can call that philosophy multiculturalism if you want to.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:36AM
includes respecting all other people as full humans with the full complement of human rights. I guess you can call that philosophy multiculturalism if you want to.
That's not multiculturalism at all, it's entirely orthogonal. Human rights means treating people equally under the law and recognizing they have certain inalienable rights. This doesn't mean you have to cater to their cultural sensitivities or desires. It's entirely possible to respect human rights while having a system of government and laws which makes life unhappy for minorities, such as by mandating a particular language for official use, by mandating holidays the majority likes and ignoring the minority's wishes, etc. As long as the minorities have the same rights and there isn't some kind of segregationist system (separate restrooms, blatant discrimination, etc.) going on, then their human rights are being respected while multiculturalism is not.
The problem with multiculturalism is that some cultures simply are incompatible with other cultures. A culture which demands its religion be forefront and in charge of the government is never going to get along with a culture which values secularism, for instance (nor will it ever get along with a culture where religion is officially suppressed, as in China).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:21AM
If culture X demands that religeon be forefront,
and culture Y (with different religeon) does as
well, then they too can't get along. Such cultures
simply can't get along with **anybody** else.
Permanant containment is not a viable long-term
solution to the problem. Attempting to do that
will only prolong the extermination of the more
wimpy culture. Only non-wimpy cultures survive.
Hint: your's is wimpy if it prohibits genocide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:50PM
In today's news: conflicting cultures conflict when inhabiting the same space, unless they're willing to resolve their conflicts, such as by sharing that space without imposing on each other; who'd have thunk it?
Metaculture should be obvious, but we're quickly discarding everything we learned during the Enlightenment, and many other cultures never had those ideas in the first place (though one assumes they will arise at some point in more or less any culture that permits it).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 16 2015, @01:22AM
Permanant containment is not a viable long-term solution to the problem. Attempting to do that will only prolong the extermination of the more wimpy culture.
First off, why the hell are you writing in 80-character-wide lines? You look stupid doing so.
Secondly, how the hell is permanent containment *not* a viable long-term solution? As long as everyone stays on their side of the border, there's not a problem if the cultures conflict. As long as the "wimpy" (i.e. refuses to commit genocide according to you) culture maintains a strong border and refuses to allow immigration from the place with an incompatible culture, there's no problem.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:12AM
> I remember just recently that terrorist attack in über-monocultural Japan... Oh wait, no I don't.
Is terrorism your only barometer? Of all the violence in 1st world countries terrorist attacks are a minuscule component. To base your conclusions on such reductivist analysis is simple-minded. Just because no one is blowing up the Ainu in japan doesn't mean they aren't subject to enormous amounts of suffering and oppression.
Meanwhile look at Iraq and Syria - monocultures with hundreds of thousands of causalities from terrorist and other forms of violence.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:40AM
You've been modded "insightful" - but I would say that your insight is somewhat limited. Neither Syria nor Iraq is a monoculture. Both countries have been subject to outside influences for millenia. Both countries are home to multiple cultures, including Yazidi, Kurd, Orthodox Christian, Shia, Baathists, Bedouin, and more. Things have been complicated in recent centuries by the invasion of European powers, and the discovery of oil.
It would be more accurate to say that Syria and Iraq are the natural results of multiculturalism.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:10AM
Shh, Runaway, all Ay-rabs look the same and are the same, dontcha know
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:21AM
> Neither Syria nor Iraq is a monoculture.
Thanks for taking my bait. You are of course correct. Similarly no country on the earth is a monoculture. Not even the cited case of the Japan is such with the native Ainu and the Zainichi for example.
Therefore drawing the conclusions about the benefits of monoculture is typical racist thinking - conclusions based on a superficial reductivist understanding and barely a passing familiarity with the complex details of the situation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:33AM
Its kinda funny you consider baathists [wikipedia.org] to be a cultural group. I guess to a wing-nut conservative like you democrats are a cultural group too.
Just goes to prove my point about you only having a superficial knowledge of what the fuck you are talking about. As is always the case with racists.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:48AM
Dopeheads are a subculture - socialists are a subculture - neonazis are a subculture - even feminism has become a subculture here in the US. And, yes, Baathists are every bit as much a subculture in the mideast as the Yazidi are. Iraq was ruled by a Baathist for several decades, after all.
Or, did you think that only a religion can define a culture or subculture? The diet? A style of clothing? By what standards do you define culture? Are guns and other weapons required to defing a culture?
I suppose that you would claim that the USSR had no culture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:17AM
It's revealing how you've turned the word "culture" into something so all encompassing that it has no meaning at all. You've completely contradicted your position about monocultures by making up a definition for the word "culture" that is so generic that it is impossible to have a monoculture because any group of people can be divided up by your arbitrary lines.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:57AM
That's life, Sweety Pie. New York city culture is distinct from Los Angeles culture, which is quite distinct from the culture of Chicago. And, the country side of the United States hosts a thousand little pockets of other distinctive cultures. Ever been to south Texas? Would you confuse the poeple there with New Yorkers, or even Houstonians?
People don't all fit into your concept of what life is like. In fact, I suspect that no people fit into your world view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:26PM
> That's life, Sweety Pie.
Lol. You think you are such a wise scholar of the human condition but you can't recognize your own "culture" - old ignorant white bigot.
For you "multiculturalism" is just another thing for you to rant about - feminists, socialists, dopeheads - those are cultures to you. What a fucking joke you are. That is indeed life -- bigots gonna bigot.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:46PM
You do realize that some of the other contributing members of this board are envious of my fan club. Please, spread the love a little. Others deserve the recognition. I do love having my own fan club, but there are others just as deserving.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:55PM
Oh, poor little runaway is feeling persecuted. How terrible for you. Like all bigots, at heart you are just a whiner who thinks he's been singled out.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:07AM
It's generally advisable to google first before asserting something like this. Aum Shinrikyo [wikipedia.org], native Japanese apocalyptic cult that had recruited chemical engineers and others and amassed hordes of weapons and developed chemical weapons. They aimed big, releasing sarin in the Tokyo subway, hoping to kill tens of thousands. They only managed to kill two because there's more to dispersing chemical agents than meets the eye. I was living in Japan at the time, and it was incredibly shocking to Japanese because those chemical engineers and scientists had graduated from Kyodai (Kyoto Daigaku--Kyoto University) and Todai (Tokyo Daigaku--Tokyo University), which are the Princeton and Harvard of Japan, where the elite of the elite are educated there.
But there you go, a very monocultural society, for many the definition of a monoculture, giving birth to a very nasty, highly motivated terrorist group.
Or, you could pivot to Europe if you don't find East Asia particularly compelling and talk about Germany, another extreme monoculture (at least at the time), that gave birth to die Rote Armee Faktion, which was a terrorist group that was still active when I studied in Koln in high school in 1989. All German terrorists, targeting Germans. Or take the Italians, if you don't accept Germans as a good example; the Italians had Brigate Rosse, all Italians, targeting Italians. Or you could take FARC in Columbia, or the Shining Path in Peru. There are many other examples of lesser or greater "purity" according to the monocultural filter.
Still think monoculturalism is the answer to terrorism?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:08AM
Oh wait, no I don't. Because monoculturalism is the solution.
This is a very stupid comment for one very good reason - the world is multicultural. Unless you want the human race to go out in a blaze of glory, of course.
People do bad things because they are indoctrinated to be bad people, not because of their "culture". Germans are not "bad people", but look what happened under Hitler. Myanmar Buddhists are not bad people either, but there is strong evidence of ethnic cleansing of local Muslim populations. Almost every nation and culture has plenty of examples - we are all equal in how bad we can be. So we all either stop behaving like assholes and stop doing bad things and start tolerating each other, OR, might as well set off WWIII now and have most of the world be inhabitable for anyway. Monoculturalism of nil is certainly most peaceful.
And there is always going to be idiots with weapons bent on going out in a blaze of glory. It will never be possible to stop them 100% of the time, even if we live in a literal jail. The best way to fight extremists is to unite everyone against them. But if you allow the extremists to divide you instead, like your opinion seem to indicate, then the struggle is lost already and the extremists won. The more polarized a city/nation/region/world/whatever becomes, the more extremists are created - don't be one of those.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:27PM
the world is multicultural
If only we could keep the individual cultures contained in geographically defined areas of some kind. Wouldn't that be great? Maybe even build a nice wall to keep others out.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:15PM
If only we could keep the individual cultures contained in geographically defined areas of some kind.
And how do you think that would work? One person cannot marry another because they are in different "culture"? One person cannot live as they want, because that would be different from "their" culture?
Your "culture" doesn't define who you are - you define who you are. Your life is your own, not your "culture's".
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:00PM
Newsflash: I was making a joke, dum-dum. That comment was referring to a thing called 'borders', which are the confinement of what is commonly called a 'country'.
A 'country' is a place of people with a shared heritage and culture. Of course, that's only if you don't open your 'borders' to anyone who wants to poz your neg hole. A country with open borders cannot exist, at least not for long. A country with open borders will be conquered by whoever wants to.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:18AM
Mohammedism is the cause of this attack. It is a vile philosophy that justifies war against non-followers, as a sort of Arab Naziism. To blame generic 'monoculturalism' is to deflect blame on the root cause: massive ethnocidal immigration of the adherents of this 'faith'.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:28AM
Don't single out Islam, they're just 600 years behind Christianity, give them time to catch up.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BK on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:56AM
Bear in mind that the most famous Christian atrocities, occurred while resisting or combating the religion of child rape. Of course it's never that simple, but sometimes it really is just_that_simple.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:46PM
So if they commit evil while combating something they believe is evil, then it's okay.
Why child rape? Why not murder, which is far worse? Is the "child rape" thing intended to stir emotions? If so, it doesn't work on me, but it does set off my bullshit alarm due to how often the government has used it. And if you look at the bible (even including the new testament), it's not all that much better unless you 'creatively' interpret it (i.e. lie), but anyone can play that game.
(Score: 4, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:14AM
That depends [theguardian.com]. You could argue they are only ~10-15 years behind. Of course you could argue that Bush is just using god as an excuse for violence, but I'd then argue the same for the terrorists.
All Christian religions known to me are based on the bible, and none of them is ready to officially exclude the old testament, which has some pretty nasty parts [evilbible.com]. Even the new testament, which tells us to go to church to confess and kill all sinners (defined in previous parts) afterwards (""Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.", John 8:7) doesn't seem like a big improvement under this context.
They usually have their own interpretation, which is diametrically opposed opposed to these part of the bible, but so do most moslims.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:09PM
Wow,
Is there an award for taking something so far out of context as to make something mean the complete opposite to what is actually meant?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:31AM
Islam is a religion of peace.
Now convert or be beheaded! Allahu Akhbar! Ali-li-li-li-li-li-li-li!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:04AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:31AM
It didn't turn him into anything. He always was that, and just had it corked up inside. Now he gets to pop the cork and spray it over everyone, and claim he's better than you as he predicted this would happen all along.
I may believe that muslims have a mental disease (for believing that fairy-stories are real), but EF and his ilk are just as sociopathic. And now they get to troll us. Let them have their day, let them wallow in the filth and blood. That doesn't make them winners.
(Score: 1, Troll) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:15AM
I'd mod you up, but I keep getting this error:
Re::^)(10598-262944, Already moderated)
-.-;;
I truly live in interesting times. While replying to the resident troll (ah but we love him, because he's our troll!), somebody keeping a level head gets -1, troll.
Good grief, people! This is a tragedy, but remember, this was all put into place by the Illuminati when they ousted the democratically elected and progressive government of Iran way back when.
The final pieces of their script are coming together.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:53AM
I just looked at that's posts mod log, and it looks like a freaking yoyo.
Ethanol-fueled is one of those people that could start a riot with one carefully aimed sentence. I'm both impressed and frightened at that power.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:18AM
I was being facetious, but I hope you gathered that. I can imagine it's a yoyo. I'll bet this entire discussion is a mod-bombing yoyo. I've blown 4 of my mod points for the day here. I'll probably spend that last one here, too.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:23AM
And lo and behold, there it goes! My apologies if you thought I was reporting an actual error, NCommander.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:46AM
Of all the stuff we've touched in rehash (the codebase that powers SN), the mod testing code is basically a full rewrite from Slashdot, so I won't be hugely surprised if we made a mistake somewhere and people mass-modding someone caused a race condition and a post to go -2, or +6 even!
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:45AM
So far it seems you've done good! Brilliantly good!
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:02PM
I'm angry and just posted a tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory (one of my better ones, actually).
It affects all of us in different ways.
Somehow I'm still glad this oasis of crazy people, soylentnews, exists.
Soon enough all the news will be how president Marine le Pen led the world away from climate mitigation and into war with Syria.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday November 15 2015, @02:54AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:22AM
Islam is a religion of peace.
Now convert or be beheaded! Allahu Akhbar! Ali-li-li-li-li-li-li-li!
Christianity is the religion of turning the other cheek, of forgiveness.
Now stop abortions or we'll blow you up. (USA 20th-21st century)
Buddhism is the religion of live and let live.
Now convert to Buddhism or we'll execute you. (Myanmar 20th-21st century)
The United States is the country of the rule of law. (20th-21st century...)
Now we'll just put this bag on your head, and torture you in a secret prison; and if we can't catch you we'll send a drone to execute you extra-judicially of course.
Islam isn't the problem. Its just the excuse used here. Born of a lot of misery and despair in a place that just happened to be predominantly Muslim.
Religion isn't the problem. Its just a convenient excuse; but not the only one available.
Base motivations like greed, intolerance, poverty are the problem. All universal to the human experience.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:32AM
One important difference among your examples is that all systems except Muslim are rejecting the aberrations. They detect them, they talk about them, they make it known that "this won't stand" and, in the end, the abuses stop. Not so with Islam. As Islam has no central authority, every Mullah is free to interpret Quran however he likes, and there is not much to promptly and decisively stop his herecy. It does not help that Quran itself contains some permission for violence - or at least has words to that effect. As result, violence runs free in too many Muslim groups, and it is a positive feedback loop.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:25AM
Yeah, well, the muslims have no monopoly on that either. The Bible contains plenty of violent language and imagery. The Old Testament talks about how the Jews established themselves in Canaan after Abraham by basically committing genocide against the people who were already there. Those people weren't even given the option to convert that the Muslim Jihadis gave others, they were only given the option of dying. There is also plenty of latitude within Christianity for its "mullahs" to interpret the Bible however they want (case in point: Westboro Baptist Church).
I'm not excusing today's attacks, but the othering going on vis-a-vis Islam isn't supported by facts.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:48AM
You're pretty much on target. Religion is the excuse, not the reason.
And, meanwhile, many wiser heads have indeed been waring about this kind of thing. They understand that religion is the excuse. Take multiple cultures, and mix them together, and you are guilty of "stirring the pot". Europe is a witch's cauldron today, with multiple sects of a volatile religion being stirred into a somewhat rational world.
Few if any Muslims want to integrate into European society. All Muslims are taught to wage Jihad - the lessons are ingested with mother's milk. All good Muslims must struggle to advance Islam, and to improve themselves spiritually. Not all Muslims choose to become soldiers or terrorists, but all good Muslims must wage some form of jihad.
And, Europe will remain incapable of countering jihad, unless and until Europe understands that fact.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:17AM
And when Europe understands this fact, what then? I've been asking myself similar questions this night. To me, this appears to be a cultural war. If a group of like-minded assholes came into my town, and killed my friends and family, in the near term I would lust for the death of their friends and family, and any and all that stood with them at any point in their life. I start to realize that this is a rather Machiavellian stance. I'm divided tonight, I do not wish to lump people together in groups and judge them all, but if I were France, tomorrow Raka would be nothing more than broken stone and burn blood on the sand.
"For it must be noted, that men must either be caressed or else annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries, but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his revenge."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:55AM
"I do not wish to lump people together"
It matters little what you or I might wish. In a culture war, there will be two (or more) sides, and the side that you choose NOT to stand with will regard you as the enemy. Those who don't take any side will stand alone, with all factions targeting them.
I am somewhat partial to western ways. If there is to be a culture war, then I will stand with the west - despite the fact that I know the west is terribly wrong in many cases.
We can probably expect the modern day equivalent of a Crusade in the near future. And, the armies will be motivated by religious zealotry and hatred, just as the invaders of Europe are motivated by zealotry and hatred.
I find it interesting that the media generally shows old men, old women, mothers, and children when when the cover the "refugees". Yet, the overwhelming percentage of "refugees" are military age males. Interview after interview, military age males tell a tale of woe, about how they came to Europe to make a home for the families they've left behind. Reporters eat that shit up because it makes for all kinds of feel-good reading. But the real story is "military aged male". The "refugee camps" are housing the vanguard of an invading army, it's really that simple.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:29AM
After 9/11 I attended a regular meeting of my Masonic lodge. A Lebanese brother, a close friend, and a Muslim, got up and delicately said that "jihad" is the struggle to rid yourself of spiritual impurities, not a license to kill others. I am no expert on the Quran or an Islamic studies expert, but it was a perspective I had not heard before that was very meaningful to the rest of us in that lodge meeting, so I put it out here now in light of the events.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:44AM
Unfortunately, there's very different strains of the Islamic religion, just as there's very different strains of Christianity.
Your Lebanese friend is obviously from one of the more moderate strains. Probably something like the Lutherans in Christianity.
But there's some really wacko strains of Christianity out there: the snake-handlers, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Pentecostals, etc. In Christianity, these groups aren't really very big, but over on the Islamic side, the "extremists" seem to be a pretty large fraction of the whole, and they're far, far more violent than even the nuttiest Christians. They're like the Christians were before the Enlightenment: burning people at the stake for "heresy" etc. Well, it took half a millenium for the Christians to shed most of that nonsense and become somewhat civilized. The Muslims aren't going to do it in a decade.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:24AM
> the Seventh-Day Adventists,
They aren't particularly wacko, more on the amish side of things - they brought us breakfast cereal after all. Yes Kellog was a 7th day adventist.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:12AM
It was also invented to make you stop masturbating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_flakes [wikipedia.org]
Dr. Kellogg introduced Kellogg Corn Flakes in hopes that it would reduce masturbation.[5] In fact, Kellogg devoted much of his energy to discouraging sexual activity of any kind, and was an especially ardent critic of masturbation, which he believed could cause "cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal emissions, impotence, epilepsy, insanity, and mental and physical debility" as well as "dimness of vision" and moral corruption.[6]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:22PM
Was it common for men to masturbate in their breakfast, in dr. Kellogg's time??
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:47PM
No, they're not. They're not even a blip. There are 1.57 billion, with a "b," muslims in the world. ISIS are a rounding error. That's like saying my crazy Christian cousin Greg is a "pretty large fraction of the whole" of Christians. He's not.
I really wish this religious bigotry, because that's what this is, would cease because it is not only hateful, but also tedious, and worst of all, incorrect. It's flat wrong from any perspective.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 16 2015, @01:18AM
No, they're not. They're not even a blip.
Bullshit. If they're "not even a blip", then please explain how it is they control many nations. Saudi Arabia and Iran for starters, Egypt (where they elected the Muslim Brotherhood in a *popular election* but the military overthrew this democratically-elected government), Afghanistan which used to be under the control of the Taliban (and they're still trying to retake it), and Iraq where much of it is under the control of ISIS. Don't forget all the other Islamist factions in various places, such as the ones trying to take over Syria (which includes ISIS but also several other extremist factions), and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.
But somehow it's "religious bigotry" to point out that Islamic extremists enjoy wide, popular support throughout the Middle East.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:32AM
It's like any religious interpretation - if you have evil in your heart you'll pick the passages that can be used to support your evil and ignore the ones that contradict it. If you have good in your heart you'll pick the passages that support your good. That includes people who demonize a religion too. You can tell runaway has evil in his heart because he's so quick to find it in others. Kind of like all those anti-gay conservatives who are actually in the closet - projecting their own fear and self-loathing on to others. He sees jihad as permission to make his bigotry and intolerance acceptable because "they did it first."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:41AM
Interesting point of view. Gays project fear and self-loathing . . .
YOUR words, Pal, not mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:34PM
Interesting point of view. Gays project fear and self-loathing . . .
YOUR words, Pal, not mine.
What a perfect example! You just did exactly what I accused you of - picking the part to support your view and ignoring the part that contradicts so that you can feel justified about the evil in your heart.
Here's the full statement:
Kind of like all those anti-gay conservatives who are actually in the closet - projecting their own fear and self-loathing on to others
So no, those were your words, buddy. Expressing the shit in your heart and literally trying to blame it on me for doing it first.
Could you be any less self-aware?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:44PM
You're not being very rational here. Anti-gay conservatives who are actually in the closet are - by definition - gay. So, you are quite clearly stating that gays project fear and self loathing. Your statements have absolutely nothing to do with any evil that may or may not be in my heart.
Again, those are YOUR words, not mine.
Intersting, indeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:15PM
Wow, your lack of self-awareness is stunning in the size of its depth.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:23PM
Typical SJW kind of comeback. If I'm to stupid to understand, why do you bother to try arguing with me? You keep coming back, and coming back, but you don't say anything. Keep this up, and I'm going to file for divorce, and get an injunction on your ass for stalking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:18PM
> If I'm to stupid to understand, why do you bother to try arguing with me?
Because your purpose in life is to be a foil. A cautionary tale for people who think racists aren't idiots.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:21PM
Well, one of us appears to be to stupid to understand that Islam is not a race. Think about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:10PM
> Well, one of us appears to be to stupid to understand that Islam is not a race. Think about it.
Foiled again.
Islam is not a race but you are still a racist. [redflag.org.au]
Debunking the “Islam is Not a Race!” Argument [wordpress.com]
Meanwhile even the OED says you are wrong: [oxforddictionaries.com]
race:
1.1 A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group:
example: "They sought to weld the country's diverse ethnicities into a Brazilian race defined in historical and cultural terms."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:21PM
I've run out of patience, and you've ceased to be amusing, so I'm not wasting time on your links. Islam is not a race. No amount of blathering will change that. Islam is a religious political structure, commonly followed by Arabs, Black Africans, and a multitude of Asians and Pacific islanders, as well as smaller populations in the western world. In point of fact, Islam hardly recognizes race, as near as I can tell. Islam sees men as men, and women as women, one of them being the property of the other. Islam is a patriarchal society that is equally applicable to all races.
You lose this one, Pal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:50PM
> I've run out of patience, and you've ceased to be amusing, so I'm not wasting time on your links
lol. Are you sure you didn't read any of those links because you practically quoted what one said. Are you not the greatest parody of racism on this site?
> You lose this one, Pal.
Yeah, sure I did. The Oxford English Dictionary just kicked your ass.
(Score: 1) by rufty on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:46PM
Just to say I've heard about the same sentiment, also from a Lebanese guy, back when I was at Uni.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:23AM
> All Muslims are taught to wage Jihad - the lessons are ingested with mother's milk
Jesus fucking christ. You fucking hitler wannabe.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:23AM
to find out what the concept really means to the people who practice it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:09AM
Gonna have to agree with some other comments on your post. You are obviously biased in the extreme. A few bad apples etc., and you are generalizing to the majority of humanity. Muslims are the majority, so given your opinion it is a MIRACLE that anyone else is still alive...
There are extremists in every culture, and I'm sick and tired of people venting their frustration and hatred at some group because it is convenient. Read some history, learn some shit. Get a broader perspective. Meet some people and realize that there is no general boogeyman, just some assholes in EVERY community.
Muslims beheading people, Christians blowing up abortion clinics and killing various people, Mormons knocking on EVERYONE'S door, Jehovah's witnesses keeping their women down, Buddhists judging the carnivores, FSMers eating spaghetti in some weird ritual to their god... C'MON!
LIVE AND LET LIVE!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @04:07PM
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2015, @03:50AM
I am a seasoned traveller, and have visited several predominantly Muslim countries in both the Middle-East and in Asia and *not once* have I feared for my safety based on religious grounds (on scary traffic, yes, but not for fear of being labelled an "infidel" or an "enemy of Isalm"). Absolutely no-one was wanting to wage war against me, or to harm me because of my quite obvious "lack of Isalm". In fact the general feel seemed to be the same as for all cultures that I've come across, most people want essentially the same thing - peace, safety, food, shelter, laughs, friends.
I understand how scared or bigoted people might try to equate all Muslims with these extremists, however that equation is simply not true. Not at all.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:44AM
Except you can count the number of crazy Christian attacks on the west with two hands with fingers left over AND every mainstream religion attacked them as the nutbars that they are. Now lets compare this to Islam where you will run out of fingers and toes in a single month and you will be hard pressed to find most imams calling them out as apostates because they know what their book says and more importantly HOW their book works.
For those that do not know their "prophet" actually did something that was REALLY fricking smart when he designed their religion. He saw that other religions had conflicting passages and came up with something bloody brilliant to solve this problem and its REALLY simple, ready? 'Anything that comes later supersedes anything that comes before' and with that one little move he completely solved the conflicting passages issues. Of course if you look at what actually comes later, the Hadiths? Its all "Jihad jihad jihad" while all the peaceful stuff? Yeah that came first and is therefor superseded, its really only historical. I'll leave with a collection of quotes from the quran, you can decide for yourself how peaceful they are...
Quran 4:89: They (infidels) desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
Quran 8:12: Instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers;
Quran 2:191: kill the disbelievers wherever we find them
Quran 22:19-22: for them (the unbelievers) garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods.
Quran 8:12: Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Quran 8:7: Allah wished to confirm the truth by His words: Wipe the infidels out to the last.
Quran 8:59: The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them. They are your enemy and Allah's enemy.
Quran 8:60: Prepare against them whatever arms and cavalry you can muster that you may strike terror in the enemies of Allah, and others besides them not known to you.
Quran 9.29 Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
Quran 47:4: Strike off the heads of the disbelievers and, after making a wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by vux984 on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:38AM
Except you can count the number of crazy Christian attacks on the west with two hands with fingers left over
20th century?
IRA, Nazi. Both were more political than religious in nature but religion was a factor in the conflict and the particpants were nonetheless mostly Christians who reconciled/rationalized their actions with their faith. And that's my point. Muslim extremists are using Islamic texts as a pretext and justification to do what they WANT to do: seize power and set them selves up in power. The texts really aren't the real motivation. the texts are the rationalization. Just as Christians found ways to rationalize their actions with the texts in the past.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:22AM
LOLWut? The Nazis HATED Christianity, they threw plenty of priests in the camps with everybody else, try reading Himmler and you'll find that other than a little lip service pre 36 before they had full power they thought Christianity was crap. And as for the IRA? They wanted their country back, if they could get the people on their side by singing the praises of Bozo? They would have done so.
Sorry but not even close, and kinda sad that you had to try to bring in a group that despised religion and one that simply used it to gain press to try to compare it to a worldwide totalitarian political movement that honestly makes the NSDAP look cuddly by comparison. It has been shown time and time again the more Muslims a country has? The more violence it has. Look at the countries that are 100% Muslims...are they peaceful? Nope, in fact they are war torn shitholes. What you have is a religion with beliefs in the middle ages with access to 21st century technology.....a bad combination and sooner or later we will have to wake the fuck up and realize their values and ours are mutually incompatible.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:28AM
It's because Muslims hate us for our Freedoms, has nothing to do with the West occupying and bombing their countries. So nothing like the IRA at all. Oh wait... yeah, no it is because of those things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:38PM
> LOLWut? The Nazis HATED Christianity
No, they used christianity for their own purposes. The priests they sent to the camps were the ones who did not cooperate with their co-option of christianity. Which is exactly what you are claiming about islam - a "totalitarian political movement."
Positive Christianity [wikipedia.org]
> It has been shown time and time again the more Muslims a country has? The more violence it has.
Correction, you and your fellow islamafoes have claimed it time and time again.
In fact:
Homicide rates in Muslim-majority countries average about two murders per annum per 100,000 people. In non-Muslim countries, the average rate is about 8 per 100,000. Murder rates fluctuate from year to year, but they are consistently low in Muslim societies. The homicide rate in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, is 1 per 100,000—one-fifth the rate of the world’s largest Christian country, the United States. Christian countries live with murder rates that are unknown in the Muslim world. Brazilians and Mexicans are used to murder rates in the 15-25 range; the rate in Venezuela tops 50. Turks, Egyptians, Iranians, and Malaysians live with rates in the 2-4 range
The world experienced 235 episodes of intrastate violence that claimed over one thousand lives between 1946 and 2007. A total of just over 21 million people lost their lives in these conflicts.
Huntington’s thesis about Muslim bloodiness fares badly when we look at the evidence. In predominantly Muslim countries, on average, 0.65 percent of the population perished in major episodes of intrastate violence. In non-Muslim countries, 0.72 percent died in such episodes on average. In the postwar period, Muslim countries suffered slightly less severely from loss of life in major episodes of political violence than non-Muslim countries.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/no-islam-isn-t-inherently-violent-and-the-math-proves-it.html [thedailybeast.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:57PM
WTF? This drivel got modereated "Insightful"?
HITLER WAS CHRISTIAN!
"Besides that, I believe one thing: there is a Lord God! And this Lord God creates the peoples." Adolf Hitler
"I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal." Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations; we have stamped it out" Adolf Hitler
HITLER WAS A FUCKING ALTAR BOY! [answers.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday November 15 2015, @01:32PM
The Nazis HATED Christianity,
No they really didn't. Most of them identified themselves AS Christians. Most German people identified AS Christians. Hitler self identfied as Christian.
they threw plenty of priests in the camps with everybody else
The Nazi's disposed of priests who weren't going along with their nutjob plans the same way they dealt with anyone else who wasn't on board with their nutjob plans.
That's no different than the various extremist Muslim groups killing other Muslims who aren't on board with their nutjob plans. (That is to say -- In this modern conflict, not only are different the extremist factions killing eachother -- they are also killing the Muslim moderates who disagree with them.)
There are many commonalities with Nazi's christianity; from Hitler seeking to legitimize his regime with the vatican -- to framing the holocaust against the jews as carrying out a divine mandate. Religion may not have been the centerpiece to the degree it is to ISIS, but the German's were by and large Christians from the top of the military food chain to the farmers in the countryside, and they'd reconciled the war with their faith. They went to church every Sunday. They believed the war was God was restoring his faithful German's to their rightful place; taking what what was rightfuly theirs back from the Jews, etc.
It has been shown time and time again the more Muslims a country has? The more violence it has. Look at the countries that are 100% Muslims...are they peaceful?
Actual statistics and evidence really don't support any of these claims at all.
Yes, you have Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya as predominantly Islam.
But you have Myanmar (90% buddist), Rwanda (94% Christian), Columbia (92% Christian), Congo (50% Christian, 45% other, 2% islam), Zimbabwe (65% Christian), El Salvador (86% Christian....)
Violence and war corresponds far more to poverty than it does with Religion.
And you can't point to the current wars in the middle east as proof of anything. The West has been waging proxy wars there for decades and exploiting the region for oil. After a couple generations of that, there'd be extremist violent factions breeding there no matter what religion the local population was.
People are all much the same. Those people happen to be Muslim, so when you shit on them stir them up the extremist factions that emerge are going to be justifying their actions with Islam with God on their side. Just as the IRA and the Nazi's were composed of Christians with God on THEIR side. The problem isn't Islam.
Any religion, indeed ANY set of beliefs can be twisted and perverted by an extremist. Its why one of my first examples in this thread was a reference to the United States and its traditions of law. Laws which are time and again twisted and subverted to do something vile when it suits those that benefit from it or when they are afraid. If the United States manages to effortlessly subvert its own constitution -- to intern the Japanese in concentration in the 20th century, random (and not so random) individuals in Gauntanamo Bay in the 21st, it just goes to show you just how malleable things are. What chance does any religion stand?
If a people find they need to justify something, God WILL be on their side, their religion WILL justify whatever action they take; and even their laws WILL not only allow it, but will have ALWAYS allowed it. Even if they hadn't interpreted them that way before and it goes against everything they literally say. That is not a feature of Islam, that is a feature of people.
worldwide totalitarian political movement that honestly makes the NSDAP look cuddly by comparison
Say what now? This just batshit. Their is no worldwide totalitarian movement there are several different factions that are literally at war with eachother within Islam. Multiple different extremist groups all at war with eachother, and at war with the moderates.
Look at list of the factions fighting in Syria alone.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday November 15 2015, @01:44PM
For your education, and what would have happened if Hitler had won, Himmler on religion [worldfuturefund.org] including speeches and audio recordings with translation. Allow me to highlight one excerpt.."We will have to deal with Christianity in a tougher way than hitherto. We must settle accounts with this Christianity, this greatest of plagues that could have happened to us in our history, which has weakened us in every conflict. If our generation does not do it then it would I think drag on for a long time. We must overcome it within ourselves. "
Yep sounds like a lover of Christ to me, uh huh.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @03:08PM
> We must settle accounts with this Christianity,
>
>Yep sounds like a lover of Christ to me, uh huh.
As already mentioned they didn't like some parts of christianity, they were pushing their own sect. [wikipedia.org] That is the way it is done, nothing unique to the nazis.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday November 15 2015, @09:02PM
Yes Himmler was fascinated with Hinduism, and yes Himmler made some speeches. Himmler also had lots of enemies within the party. To credit all of Nazi Germany or even the Nazi party as sharing his personal religious views and vision for the future is a gross over statement.
Nazi Germany including Hitler himself was overwhelmingly Catholic. It's absurd to claim you know what would have happened if they'd won. But I think its pretty doubtful millions of Germans including most of the Nazi party leadership would have all simply gone along with abandoning their faith just because Himmler said so. Its far more likely that if the Nazi's won, with Rome under Nazi control, that a Nazi sympathizer would have been installed as Pope.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday November 16 2015, @05:05AM
Good Lord you aren't gonna accept your wrongness are you? Well you want me to wallpaper the place with Hitler quotes on religion? Really not a problem..
"We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession...." that is from the fricking NSDAP handbook.
"As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven." Mein Kampf Vol 1 Chap 1...sounds like he wants his OWN religion based on Germany NOT any particular official religion to me..more? Might want to look at his views on propaganda, aka lie your ass off to get folks on board..
"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12) Let us not forget this was the guy that swore up and down Germany only wanted peace with France...right up until he rolled the tanks. I think we have more than enough evidence that what he sold the masses and what he actually believed was two totally different things...More?
"As a human being it is my duty to see to it that humanity will not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did that old civilization two thousand years ago, a civilization which was driven to its ruin by the Jews. . . I am convinced that I am really a devil and not a Christian if I do not feel compassion and do not wage war, as Christ did two thousand years ago, against those who are steeling and exploiting these poverty-stricken people."...that is from a speech waaay back in 1922, even back then it sounds like he was simply using the old "Jews killed Christ" routine to get the people on his side for a genocide. Might want to look up "The stab in the back" to see why as a soldier of Germany, regardless of religion, he HATED Jews with a passion, because it was "common knowledge" that the Germans were gonna "win the war" but Jewish bankers stabbed them in the back.
Sorry but we have more than enough evidence that the Nazi leadership gave not a single fuck about ANY religion except when it could be used to further the goals of the state. It was made clear that the "morality of the state" would have been controlled by Himmler and the SS and he certainly had no fucks to give about Christianity, and the rest of the leadership only cared as much as it would fall in line with their already chosen goals. Again if a church leader said "this is wrong"? Well his ass could get in the camp next to the Jew, they had ZERO respect or compassion for anybody just because they were one religion or another.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday November 16 2015, @09:20PM
.sounds like he wants his OWN religion based on Germany
Of course they did; it even has its own name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity [wikipedia.org]
That's par for the course with any nutjob extremist; start by defining the way religion 'ought' to be; then declare that everyone who disagrees is interpreting it wrong.
That's not a Nazi rejection of Christianity any more than ISIS is rejecting Islam today.
Both did the same damned thing, took the parts they needed/wanted, downplayed or reinterpreted anything that didn't match the propaganda. Kill anyone who didn't get on board.
The context of this argument is ISIS relationship with Islam. And its the same as the Nazi relationship with Christianity. You can't declare on one hand that the Nazi's hated Christianity because they inveted their own pro-German racist version of it and then started killing priests who didn't think it was right while at the same time declare that Islam is the root problem with ISIS... when ISIS did the same thing: they made distorted version of it, declared everyone else wrong, including other Muslims and then started the killing; fully justified by their distortion of their religion.
Its exactly the same thing.
Good Lord you aren't gonna accept your wrongness are you?
Not when I'm not wrong.
Tell you what, though I'll concede the Nazi's hated Christianity by their actions; if you concede that ISIS hates Islam by their equivalent actions.
Because I don't care whether you you call what they did as:
a) 'pro-their-own-relgion' (because they both took their religion and integrated it with their propaganda)
or
b) 'anti-their-own-religion' (because they both took their religion and grossly distorted it to serve their propaganda)
as long as you call it the same thing for both groups.
(And we surely agree that both groups are anti-other-peoples-religion.)
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday November 17 2015, @01:34AM
Its off the front page so nobody is gonna read this therefor I do not care to continue this conversation, goodbye.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:32PM
> The texts really aren't the real motivation. the texts are the rationalization.
About two years ago there was a widely reported survey that compared the level of a person's literacy in their own religion with their level of extremism - not just muslims, but christians and jews. The results were that the more extreme their ideology, the less knowledge they had about their own religion.
I wish I had bookmarked one of those reports because now all my google-fu can find are stories about general religious literacy - including knowledge about other religions and how atheists have the most general knowledge about religion of any group.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:30AM
> kill them wherever you find them
Are all your quotes as out-of-context as this one? (The clue was in that you left the lower case letter at the start of the quote, or end with a period, so weren't even quoting a complete sentence. You need to fix that if you want to get away with it in the future.)
2:190 Fight in the way of God those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. God does not like transgressors.
2:191 And kill them wherever you find them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah [Persecution] is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
2:192 And if they cease, then indeed, God is Forgiving and Merciful.
So that part you quoted was conditional on them already having started a war with you on your own territory. Which I guess you can say has already happened. Thanks Americans.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:17PM
I see some low numbers there. I'm pretty sure that's the bit that was superseded.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:03PM
> I see some low numbers there. I'm pretty sure that's the bit that was superseded.
Are you saying the quran is written in chronological order?
Lol. So cute. Such an expert on why Islam is evil and you don't even know the most basic mechanical facts about the religion.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:21PM
Those are the google terms you were looking for. Lots of results for those. Still happening, actually. Have never really stopped. Crazy Christian attacks from the West have been going on for centuries and have killed more people than Hitler, Stalin, and muslim terrorists combined (although possibly not more than Mao's Great Leap Forward). Muslim terrorists are pikers next to the crazy Christians that de-populated two entire continents of the world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:00PM
Citation please, or are you gonna seriously try to claim actual wars like Iraq were crusades?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:23PM
If you're referring to the Native American depopulation, supposedly the "Smallpox Blanket Maneuver" is generally thought to be a myth. You sound to be straining the definition of "attack" rather hard.
Citations needed
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:57PM
> 'Anything that comes later supersedes anything that comes before'
Except that's not actually how "abrogation" works - there is a lot more to it than simple chronological order. It is waaaay more complicated than that and is the subject of tons and tons of debate within the religion. For example, some groups think 400+ verses have been abrogated while others think less than 20, some even say zero. [wikipedia.org]
Anyone unfamiliar with rhetoric like hairyfeet's should realize that his knowledge is the result of the islamafoe echo-chamber - a section of the internet populated by non-experts who have so little literacy in the cultures they criticize that they don't even know what they don't know. It is invective based on ignorance and cherry-picking and then declaring themselves the final word on things that tens of thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to studying have argued over for centuries. There is so much disagreement within islam that anyone trying to declare what is "true islam" is only revealing their own nature, not anything meaningful about actual muslims.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:26PM
If there is no consensus at all by experts, how can you say he's definitely wrong?
There are at least a few groups that probably have that stance, and as is mentioned repeatedly all across this comment section, a small fraction of Islam is what we're talking about here.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:43PM
> If there is no consensus at all by experts, how can you say he's definitely wrong?
He is wrong in saying that it is a universal truth about islam.
> a small fraction of Islam is what we're talking about here.
No, HE is talking about all muslims. The reasoning is "if you aren't a crazy extremist you are doing islam wrong."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:11AM
Your reasoning is wrong. You establish that Islam has problems just like some other ideologies, however the conclusion you make disregards the fact that not all ideologies equally lend themselves to radicalization.
Islam is dangerous because it teaches extreme contempt, and arguably, even outright violence towards heathens. It doesn't matter if "it's just a metaphor", all that matters is that it's easy to convince Muslims that it's not. It is a problem because it is a very convenient excuse. A lot of places have suffered equally terrible things, but you don't see radical movements elsewhere nearly as much as you see them in Islamic communities.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:18AM
The Google machine says there are 1.57 billion muslims in the world. Let's say there are 10,000 bona fide muslim terrorists in the world. That's less than 0.0007% of the bunch. Even if you veered into wild hyperbole and asserted there are actually 1 million bona fide muslim terrorists in the world, that's still less than 0.07% of the total. Statistically, it seems to me they have a pretty solid claim to "religion of peace" if their bad apples are less than a rounding error.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:12AM
Isis/Isil/Daesh has far more than 10,000 rabid terrorists at it's command. I prefer the term Daesh, because more rational Muslims recognize that Daesh are a bunch of pretenders. Although I'm not a linguist, despite the fact that I speak no Arabic or Farsi, I'm aware that Daesh is the derogatory form of Isis or Isil. In effect, more rational Muslims are calling them heretics, apostate, swine, and worse. But, the fact remains that Daesh tens of thousands of swine at their command. They have overrun large parts of two countries, and they are flexing their muscles in yet more countries. A mere ten thousand militants couldnt' accomplish what Daesh has done.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:42PM
Runaway, even if they had 10,000,000 terrorists, which they don't, it'd still be less than 1% of all the muslims in the world. Do all Christians in the world deserve scorn and carpet bombing because Westboro Baptist church is running around vomiting hatred on everyone? Wouldn't you think that it's a little over the top to tar all Christians with the same brush because radical evangelical Christians have assassinated abortion doctors and bombed clinics? Is it mete to excoriate all Jews because a bunch of whackadoodle orthodox men were throwing rocks at a bus full of girls recently because they were daring to try to go to school?
And let's indulge in a little candor here: The United States helped manufacture the pricks in ISIS with the "War of Choice," which everybody said was a bad fucking idea to begin with, and which was ignored because Bush and Cheney wanted to give themselves a big oil payday. The US further shaped the ISIS guys by doing execrable stuff like Abu Ghraib.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:54PM
Phoenix, I can almost justify nuking both Mecca and the Vatican, for the same reasons. Bomb them, then jeer at all the "believers". "God doesn't give a damn, not for his capital, not for his innocents, not for his believers."
But, you will probably admit that the Vatican is a less virulent and less violent threat than Mecca is, today.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:49AM
The problem is the inaction of the majority against the extremists. Some years ago, there was a mullah preaching hate, violence, murder in the largest mosque in London. This wasn't in a back-water mosque in a backwater city. This was the largest mosque in a major cosmopolitan city.
He was allowed to preach his violent message for 5 years before the police stepped in.
You can't claim to be a religion of peace while allowing the preaching of violence in your places of worship.
So, no. It's not a religion of peace, despite the many peaceful followers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:35PM
And as far as I know, Westboro Baptist church is still preaching violence in the United States without anyone having stepped in to stop it. Does that mean that Christians have no claim to "religion of peace?"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:53PM
Remind me again when someone from the Westboro Baptist church preaches in a major church in a major city. Also, while they may advocate hate, I think that they are very careful not to advocate violence.
Summary: it's not comparable.
Also, what you are attempting is moral equivalence. It has no impact on my original claim.
(Score: 2) by Murdoc on Tuesday November 17 2015, @12:40AM
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday November 17 2015, @02:44AM
As I acknowledged, there are many peaceful Muslims. However, they are also misrepresenting their own holy book, which has clear messages on how non-believers should be treated. Yes, the earliest texts are peaceful, but later texts are not kind to non-followers of Islam.
Also, as I pointed out earlier, Islam is mostly misogynistic. It's attitudes like that which make extremism easier to promote. Just google "Trojan Horse schools" for more examples of support for extreme versions of Islam amongst large numbers of muslims.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:52AM
And it's a deeply misogynistic religion.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:31PM
And so are Christianity and Judaism if you go by what's in the Bible. It's OK for a father to have sex with his daughters? Really? Or, how about those orthodox Jews in Israel throwing rocks at a bus full of girls who were trying to go to school, *because they were trying to go to school*? How about Christians in the US trying to tell women what to do with their own bodies all the time?
I don't think misogyny in Islam is OK, but let's not single them out for special scorn when the other Abrahamic religions are just as guilty.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:03PM
Did I state that either religion is a religion of peace? As far as Christianity goes, the old testament is only quoted by those Christian sects who are confused about their own religion. As far as I know, the Catholic church doesn't consider the old testament to be authoritative (example, the Pope's recent statements about evolution), so your examples above don't apply. Again, moral equivalence.
Orthodox Jews: I don't claim that they are a religion of peace.
However, I will state again: when there is actual violence promoted in a major church in a major western city, and not just by some tiny sect in a backwater, then the same claim to be peaceful is clearly not true.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:20PM
Did I state that either religion is a religion of peace? As far as Christianity goes, the old testament is only quoted by those Christian sects who are confused about their own religion. As far as I know, the Catholic church doesn't consider the old testament to be authoritative (example, the Pope's recent statements about evolution), so your examples above don't apply. Again, moral equivalence.
In other words, they pick and choose which bullshit they want to listen to. I guess that is good in a way, but don't pretend any of these dumb fuck theists are being even slightly consistent.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:40PM
And so are Christianity and Judaism if you go by what's in the Bible. It's OK for a father to have sex with his daughters?
Technically that's relying on what *isn't* in the Bible. Apparently there's debate over whether it was left out because it was "too obvious," it was a scribal error, or it actually means something. And then there was the instance [biblegateway.com] where Lot's daughters got him drunk and slept with him. Presumably they thought he wouldn't go along with it otherwise? I dunno. Lot was kind of an idiot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest_in_the_Bible [wikipedia.org]
How about Christians in the US trying to tell women what to do with their own bodies all the time?
The other side of that argument being "thou shalt not murder." But I'm sure you're aware of all that already.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:27PM
The other side of that argument being "thou shalt not murder."
That argument is rather ineffective because other people usually do not reside within your body. If they do, I can kick them from my property, and if that happens to kill them, then so be it. People have a fundamental right to control their own bodies, and someone else certainly doesn't have a fundamental right to live in mine, even if they require that to live. I won't allow myself to be forced to give organs to some person who would die without them, and I won't be forced to provide living space to some person within my own body.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:24PM
It's OK for a father to have sex with his daughters?
How is that sort of incest inherently misogynist?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:24AM
Yeah how many religions of peace attack others for hearsay. Stonings, burnings, beheadings. Those acts are conducted by the everyday muslims in some contries.
There are instances of it even happening in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Anyone who believes its OK to stone someone to death for talking bad about Mo is someone that holds beliefs that are fundamentally incompatible with western culture. I dont have a problem with the people, I fucking hate their culture though. Your accused of stealing, there goes a hand. Accidentally blind someone, they take your eyes. Spill your Chai on the quran? Off with your head. Accused of adultury, stoning. Well for the chicks at least.
All of those actions are coming from the somewhat reasonable ones. The Saudi government does this stuff, this is being done by "allies".
Religion of peace my fucking ass. Bloodthirsty, vengeful, grudge holding, are much more apt descriptions of their religion.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:40AM
You cannot ignore various country's foreign policy decisions in this either.
Yes these groups are vile and spread hate and should be eliminated.
But their recent heavy influx of recruits is not due to their highly successful advertising campaigns!
You must remove the hate and abuse from all sides for this to go away.
Unfortunately the world is populated with "modern humans" and thus this will never happen in the foreseeable future until this is resolved.
Some suggest they will achieve this end themselves...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:15AM
You must remove the hate and abuse from all sides for this to go away.
Wrong. War is won by violence. It's the only way to impose your philosophy on others. If you are not prepared to do that, you will be replaced by those who are. "Removing hate" is idealistic bullshit and you might as well hold a knife to your own neck.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:22AM
Yeah yeah yeah tough guy,
Your might muscles are so mighty.
Pathetic.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:53AM
Then they could spend the money setting up schools all around the world to bring up children in their world view.
Something like that has happened within Islam. Saudi money has spread Wahhabism far beyond its natural reach. Nor are the Saudi clerics representative. When one of them ruled that anybody who says the earth is round was an enemy of Islam, there were gales of laughter in Egypt.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:36AM
Such a comment fans the flames of hate. Those flames spread and are hard to douse before they destroy irreplaceable things and lives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:11AM
So I suppose Irishness was the cause of IRA bombings in the UK?
(Score: 1) by cmdr_tofu on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:45PM
It is a vile philosophy that justifies war against non-followers
Oh you mean like the Crusades? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades [wikipedia.org] )
It seems like you are arguing in favor of religious discrimination, yet accusing others of Nazism. I, for one, believe in freedom of religion, and that the secular government trumps any religious concerns.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:25AM
The follow up to that thought is that to prevent horrors like this we need to counter the feelings and beliefs that lead up to them, as early as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:18AM
counter [...] feelings
What, by suppressing them? I don't think that's very healthy either.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SanityCheck on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:34AM
I'm not sure about that. A lot of European countries are monocultural. It's a fact. Look at Iceland. In Iceland they are very scared of losing their culture. It's a tiny country, getting closer and closer to a bigger continent. They want to maintain their culture and independence. What are you going to do? Invade them and force them to become multicultural?
There is nothing wrong in wanting to maintain your own culture in a place where your ancestors have been for thousand+ years. I may feel comfortable living in a country that has people of different colors and sizes. I move to the US and did my best to become like everyone else here. I learned the language, I even strongly identify with the people here, even thou I was not born here. It is interesting place, and mostly one of a kind, where you can be welcomed with open arms. But I would be a total douche if I thought that a tiny country half way around the world not wanting to live the same way should yield to the American way.
Now as far as people who want to move into a land that is not theirs AND not assimilate. That is not multiculturalism, that is a fuckin invasion. I have a little saying I pieced together over the years from what I noticed about what it means to be a man, and a master of one's own fate, and it goes something like this: "If you walk into a man's home and start telling him how he should run it, he will punch you and, you will deserve it. If you walk into a man's country and tell him how he should run it, he will kill you, and you will deserve it."
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:28AM
Interestingly, while the Icelandic government is blocking Syrian refugees, the people as a whole are pushing to bring in more of them. My favorite Icelandic blogger posted about how proud she was of her countrymen, and how shocked she was by the Facebook comments she got about how the refugees would threaten Iceland's purity.
https://www.facebook.com/icelandweatherreport/?fref=nf [facebook.com]
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:21AM
When I say they are example of a culture that is trying to maintain their identity I didn't mean specifically when it comes to the migrants. That itself is one threat (although a big one). But there are other, smaller threats that are coming from all over. One example of them trying to stop it is things like this. [wikipedia.org] It's meant to try to protect their language from encroaching foreign influence form Europe and beyond. Just imagine if people see Hollywood movies and start naming their kids after Actors or even worse characters from the movies. A given name is the most iconic thing that defines a culture (Just look at all the people named Mohammad et al.). What a huge blow to have the names that have been used for centuries wiped out of existence by encroaching foreign culture.
And yes of course just like with any country, there are two sides to the issue. I mean for every one person trying to conserve the culture, there is some younger person who hasn't reached the ripe age when they realize how much a culture means to its people (personal anecdote, I have recently in my 30s begun to think of how much my ancestral culture means to me, feelings I didn't really have until relatives around me started to die off from old age)
But regardless of who is in which camp, and how many of them are, not being Icelandic we should best keep our commentary to minimum and stay the hell away, let them sort it out. Sure there might be 60% people, or even higher, who think it's OK to let in 10000 foreigners. But their opinions on the matter might change when the second generation of these migrants turn out to entrench themselves in a ghetto, not speaking the local language, and just cash government subsidies while studying in Madrasas all day. Being that Iceland is VERY atheist country (probably most in all of Europe), an ultra-religious minority looking to impose Shira on the population might not really sit well with even the most liberal of the lot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:45AM
> If you walk into a man's country and tell him how he should run it, he will kill you, and you will deserve it.
I've heard that before. It carries on: if you fly drones into a man's country and launch cruise missiles at him, he will welcome you as a liberator throwing petals at your feet and give you cheap oil.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:33PM
Monoculture *is* a solution, but a vile one. Not as vile as killing everyone, which is also a solution.
I don't know of a good solution, but there are lots of "solutions" to the stated problem. Most of them are worse than the existing problem. A good start would be to withdraw from the Middle East. Unfortunately, the past actions of various different foreign agents have stirred things up to such a point that it woud be quite difficult to do this without instigating another bloodbath...and breaking a lot of promises to people who decided to trust us (for various values of "us"). But it would be better than continuing to create new injustices.
That said, if you look at history, our actions have not been any worse than those that have happened in that area over and over. Often without external stimulus. Personally I blame Tamerlane and his Mongols, as the Middle East had been settling down into a real civilization before that invasion (while Europe was still mainly barbaric). You can't really blame Mohammedism, as the various cities were all Mohammedan before the invasion of the Mongols. Afterwards the civilized Mohammedans had been killed, and a traumatized remanant took refuge in Egypt and locales. The current Muslim culture derived from that traumatized remanent. And the culture (as opposed to the individuals) is actually LESS paranoid than one could expect...but a bit more barbaric.
Now how one should relate to such a culture is a bit difficult to tell. But a slap in the face is clearly not going to be productive of a good relationship.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:43AM
it sure is #toxic in here
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:47AM
Wow, just wow. It's 2015. I can't even!
(Score: 2) by fleg on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:48AM
yeah, humanity at its finest.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:20AM
for the people that they were trying to escape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:33AM
Especially after their president says the state should be pushing their subjects to intermarry while of course he and his entire family marry only those that are of their Jewish faith. Don't ya just love hypocrisy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:53AM
And your statement is not racist, xenophobic, or at the very least segregationist (and that's being generous), how?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:47PM
racist, xenophobic, or at the very least segregationist
You say that like those are bad things! :^)