Politics & Stuff

[CHOULO19 24,332]

1 minute ago, Tautvix said:

Well.. Don't get me wrong but all terrorists are muslims you like it or not. As I see you are from Lebabon so you are most likely a muslim and you don't like it... I think nothing happens without a reason. Why a lot of people are afraid of muslims? Because probably every terrorist is muslim and they kill innocent people and people will always be more afraid of them than other people. And you should not blame them because what happens these days sums up everything.

False on every account, my friend.

1- Under the internationally agree definition of terrorism, which is the deliberate targeting of civilians for political reasons, there are terrorists in literally every single major religion in the world, as well as among atheists.

2- Minor point, but Lebanon is NOT in a majority Muslim country. We have EIGHTEEN different major religious sects, about 44% of the population identify as Christian, and I happen to be an atheist.

3- Why are a lot of people (I assume you mean in the west) are scared of Islam? Mostly bigotry, but also a mainstream media and politicians that paint all Muslims with the same brush to create fear which they can benefit from. 

The people who are committing those terrorist acts are Muslim extremists: Several groups and militias, who have embraced the extremist Wahabi doctrine of Islam and contain members who have been radicalized for all sorts of reasons, mostly political. Those have about 30 to 40 thousand members of more than 1.5 billion Muslims. 

So yes, blaming the 1.5 billion Muslims for the acts committed by those extremists today and that are only representative of those extremists groups, is wrong and bigoted. 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

57 minutes ago, xPetrCechx said:

Every person explain things in his own way... 

Yes, of course. People interpret religion the way they like and use it the way that suits them.

It's an incredibly powerful tool that is capable of enabling a great deal of violence and disasters as it has done many times in history and is doing at the time being. But it IS still just a tool.

Even if by some magical ability you could remove religion from the world, violence and terrorism won't cease to exist because new tools would be used to enable them like we've seen nationalism do, racism do, even atheist ideologies likes Stalinism do.

Until the root causes of the problem of extremist Islamic terrorism are seriously addressed, it won't magically go away, no matter how long you sit here screaming at it till you're blue in the face. 

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

The reason it is so hard to define Islam or other religions is because there are many interpretations practiced by many people.

Yes, there are people who have taken the Quran and believe that homosexuality is wrong.  There are also a large number of Muslims that don't believe that.  There are lots of Atheist homophobes out there too.  Some Catholics believe abortions are wrong, some believe in a Woman's right to choose.  There are lots of people of all faiths (and non-religions people) doing horrible things.  Basically, there are lots of idiots and assholes out there.  Some of them choose to hide behind their religion in order to justify their ignorance and abhorrent actions.

[Fernando 6,586]

2 hours ago, CHOULO19 said:

That's like asking "Is it true that all Indians hate the color blue?"

You want Islam, to be one thing so you can have an easy time making generalizations about it. However, reality always resists simplicity. Nothing is ever just one thing, certainly not a religion of a billion and a half human beings.

The answer to all of the questions in your post is that you'll find all sorts of varying opinions and beliefs among Muslims on all of those issues.

Unfortunately, you're going to have to to deal with the complexity of treating every single person of the Muslim faith based on their individual merit. 

No it ain't as you basically didn't answer the question. 

I want to know what the Bible has to say. The Bible for the islam is the Quran.

What does the issue I address being said in the book.  

There's no varying opinion just what is written. 

It's true people can interpret different passages to their liking but I'm asking plainly and simple what's written. 

Written to the question I asked. Are these allegations true? That you can actually read them plainly in these text? 

Or they just made up? 

[Fernando 6,586]

1 hour ago, Sideshow Luiz said:

The reason it is so hard to define Islam or other religions is because there are many interpretations practiced by many people.

Yes, there are people who have taken the Quran and believe that homosexuality is wrong.  There are also a large number of Muslims that don't believe that.  There are lots of Atheist homophobes out there too.  Some Catholics believe abortions are wrong, some believe in a Woman's right to choose.  There are lots of people of all faiths (and non-religions people) doing horrible things.  Basically, there are lots of idiots and assholes out there.  Some of them choose to hide behind their religion in order to justify their ignorance and abhorrent actions.

Again I'm hearing about "interpretations" 

I know this all too well. But that's why I like to read for myself. 

I want to know what is written. 

Example in the bible it's written about putting to death people that brake the law. It's written and I read it myself. If you want the quotes I can bring it and you can read it for yourself. As well it's also written that those that brake the law need a sacrifice, hence why they require an animal sacrifice otherwise they die. Again this is specifically written in the bible. 

So because you need a sacrifice to forgive your "sin" of breaking the "law" this is why Jesus became a "sacrifice" to forgive everyone that "sins" for "breaking the law"

Again all this is written and it is what it is. 

Either you believe what is written verbatim or you negate that and create your own theory and hence you don't believe what it's written. 

See you can't deny what's written, the interpretation is what's different. I'm just asking for what is written. 

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

34 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Again I'm hearing about "interpretations" 

I know this all too well. But that's why I like to read for myself. 

I want to know what is written. 

Example in the bible it's written about putting to death people that brake the law. It's written and I read it myself. If you want the quotes I can bring it and you can read it for yourself. As well it's also written that those that brake the law need a sacrifice, hence why they require an animal sacrifice otherwise they die. Again this is specifically written in the bible. 

So because you need a sacrifice to forgive your "sin" of breaking the "law" this is why Jesus became a "sacrifice" to forgive everyone that "sins" for "breaking the law"

Again all this is written and it is what it is. 

Either you believe what is written verbatim or you negate that and create your own theory and hence you don't believe what it's written. 

See you can't deny what's written, the interpretation is what's different. I'm just asking for what is written. 

I can't give you a quote from the Quaran, because I have not read it.

I've also read a number of things from the old testament that leave a lot of room for interpretation.  You could also argue that whatever was written was interpreted from something else.

As for direct quotes from the Quaran, I'm not in a position to give them to you.  Maybe a muslim member of the board can help you out.

[Fernando 6,586]

1 hour ago, Sideshow Luiz said:

I can't give you a quote from the Quaran, because I have not read it.

I've also read a number of things from the old testament that leave a lot of room for interpretation.  You could also argue that whatever was written was interpreted from something else.

As for direct quotes from the Quaran, I'm not in a position to give them to you.  Maybe a muslim member of the board can help you out.

Like what? 

As to things writing in the old testament here's an example of the passages that I told you about transferring your sins from yourselves to the animal:

Leviticus 1 (AMPC version)

The Lord ^[a]called to Moses out of the Tent of Meeting, and said to him,

² Say to the Israelites, When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of [domestic] animals from the herd or from the flock.

³ If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it at the door of the Tent of Meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.

⁴ And he shall lay [both] his hands upon the head of the burnt offering [transferring symbolically his guilt to the victim], and it shall be ^[b]an acceptable atonement for him.

 

Here is what I talked about having your sin atoned for. As in the old testament you would die for almost any small thing, as that what god demanded but only a sacrifice would suffice. 

Now in the new testament Jesus died for the sins of many and thus satisfied the need for a sacrifice once and for all. 
I can also bring you that quote if you want. 

Now by bringing you the quotes I'm bringing you what's written. Not the interpretation. 
You can read for yourselves and believe what it says or totally neglect it. 
It's up to you. 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

Hillary and Trump win Arizona.

 

The race is done on both sides really. Hillary v. Trump in the general barring a meltdown in the republican convention.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

15 hours ago, manpe said:

Welcome terrorists, Europe greets you with open arms!

I don't think our "leaders" realize we're at war. Somebody should explain to them what "infiltration" means. It's a common tactic used in every type of war, somebody send Merkel and co a link to the wikipedia page. This is now probably the biggest and deadliest case of infiltration tactics used by people who have no morals or rules. I'm just glad I live in a pointless country who nobody cares about, but our "leaders" are doing everything in their power to paint a target on our backs by brown nosing USA.

Fuck islam. Fuck all religion. I can't believe modern people, who should be more intelligent than thousands of years ago, are still following fucking moronic ancient fairy tale books and bringing it as excuse for such actions.

You're right about everything except the last paragraph. You can't put Islam and Christianity in the same boat in terms of violence in the last 10 years.

If you look at the Bible, it is like a historical book, anything that promoted killing was in the OLD testament during times of war. Like Fernando said, people had to sacrifice animals to get their sins forgiven. After those war times Jesus came and preached peace and his death allowed sins to be forgiven without sacrifice. The laws of peace that Jesus preached are what Christians follow till now. If you look at the church, any Christian religious leader who preaches violence is not supported.

But I can't say the same for Islam. For example, the supreme leader in Iran can get his followers to chant death to America and the west and it's normal there. Religious Leaders in Saudi Arabia preach that homosexuals should be killed and many other instances. Some Christians may not support homosexuality, but they would never promote them to be killed like Saudi Arabia, never. 

So please while there are a lot of good positive thinking Muslims, I think it is wrong to put Christianity and Islam in the same boat in terms of anything violence. 

[Special Juan 28,156]

The bloke from yesterday who was on the run has been captured.

[manpe 10,861]

25 minutes ago, kellzfresh said:

You're right about everything except the last paragraph. You can't put Islam and Christianity in the same boat in terms of violence in the last 10 years.

If you look at the Bible, it is like a historical book, anything that promoted killing was in the OLD testament during times of war. Like Fernando said, people had to sacrifice animals to get their sins forgiven. After those war times Jesus came and preached peace and his death allowed sins to be forgiven without sacrifice. The laws of peace that Jesus preached are what Christians follow till now. If you look at the church, any Christian religious leader who preaches violence is not supported.

But I can't say the same for Islam. For example, the supreme leader in Iran can get his followers to chant death to America and the west and it's normal there. Religious Leaders in Saudi Arabia preach that homosexuals should be killed and many other instances. Some Christians may not support homosexuality, but they would never promote them to be killed like Saudi Arabia, never. 

So please I think it is wrong to put Christianity and Islam in the same boat in terms of anything violence. 

Yes, in that sense islam is far more intolerant and a more fruitful breeding ground for extremism. In fact I think in recent history it is the only religious group to commit organized mass murders on regular basis in the name of their faith. Things like that is exactly the reason why generalization, stereotypes, racism and xenophobia towards certain people are born.

[Fernando 6,586]

13 minutes ago, manpe said:

Yes, in that sense islam is far more intolerant and a more fruitful breeding ground for extremism. In fact I think in recent history it is the only religious group to commit organized mass murders on regular basis in the name of their faith. Things like that is exactly the reason why generalization, stereotypes, racism and xenophobia towards certain people are born.

I want to mention something. 

When people compare the Knights Templar to ISIS I think you have a certain point until you get to this. 

Knowledge!!!

Back in the old time.... Meaning hundreds of years ago very few people had access to Bible. They didn't know what was "written" and hence had to believe whatever interpretation some pope gave. 

But it was once thanks to the power of Guttenberg liberation that allowed people to read that they realize their mistakes. 

Once you read the bible for yourself you would realize that it was wrong what people back in those days with power was telling you. 

This is why it is important to read very well what you believe. And to put things into context. 

[Fulham Broadway 17,338]

Beirut, London, Paris, Brussels now; a lot of the perpetrators foster their ideology when incarcerated in prison, or in the petty crime neighbourhoods where confusion and identity crisis has to be resolved by everything being black and white.

In Europe and other places around the world that aren't living in the enforced cradle of religious tribalism and its dark comforts, the adherents of the infantile worldview try to force themselves on others. The infant believes itself and its own emotional needs to be the centre of the universe. When faced with obstacle, resistance or simple non-cooperation from the wider universe or anyone in it, then the infant rages and protests. It strikes out and throws a tantrum. It demands that its desires are met. A child with siblings soon learns that it is not the centrepoint, that its needs and desires are balanced in the eyes of its parents with those of other people, that it must learn to live with disappointment and compromise. In schools, the child learns that they are one of many, a drop in an ocean of drops. Negotiation with the universe takes place. There is plurality; there is balance; there is give and take. There is a separation of self and universe. There is acceptance of the other.

The militant religious fanatics responsible for these latest waves of violence, and all others, have not made this transition. They are infants responding as infants will. They are throwing one long temper tantrum, demanding that the world conform to them. Demanding that everyone else be swept aside, that everything - the world itself - conform to their primal emotional desires. They shut down deviation and free discourse, they silence anything contrary to their particular interpretation of a great SkyParent favouring them, watching them, judging them. They rail and rage.

The journey to adulthood - individually, culturally, however we define it - is the revelation of every advanced form of negotiation. These people are infants, who as yet are unable to even grasp that negotiation is a virtue. Instead, they knock over the brick tower because someone dared to let the other child currently playing exist; exist within *their* universe. And what's more, they are quite aware of this, and proudly insist that they will never grow up, that it is immoral to seek growth and responsibility, that Mummy and Daddy, God,  are always right and outside the door of the playpen there is nothing but horror.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

1 hour ago, manpe said:

Yes, in that sense islam is far more intolerant and a more fruitful breeding ground for extremism. In fact I think in recent history it is the only religious group to commit organized mass murders on regular basis in the name of their faith. Things like that is exactly the reason why generalization, stereotypes, racism and xenophobia towards certain people are born.

Okay, I get that the Christian extremists on here are letting out all of their bigotry and irrational fear mongering, but please tell me YOU don't actually believe that bullshit?!

Only Muslim extremists have committed mass murder in recent history?!

Christian extremists? To give just one example, by far the biggest atrocity of this century is the Iraq invasion. George Bush said that God told him to do it. And that wasn't just some bullshit he said in public to get the religious extremists in the US behind him, he actually believed it. Proof? In a private conversation with then French president Jaques Chirac, he had told him that he wanted to invade Iraq because he saw 'Gog and Magog' are at work there. Go ahead, google that.

Eastern Christian extremists? Russian church called the intervention in Syria a 'holy war'.

Buddhist extremists? There are Buddhist monks who have been committing nothing short of genocide against Muslims in Myanmar. 

Jewish extremists? Israeli atrocities against Palestinians...

And we can go on and on and on...

 

So why does there seem to be a difference between all of these and Islamic extremist terror? That is because in the media and the mainstream discussion of terror by religious extremists that aren't Muslim are either complete ignored and swept under the rug or all the context and every single possible justification is given to distract from the religious extremists aspects. 

[Tautvix 1,321]

43 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

Okay, I get that the Christian extremists on here are letting out all of their bigotry and irrational fear mongering, but please tell me YOU don't actually believe that bullshit?!

Only Muslim extremists have committed mass murder in recent history?!

Christian extremists? To give just one example, by far the biggest atrocity of this century is the Iraq invasion. George Bush said that God told him to do it. And that wasn't just some bullshit he said in public to get the religious extremists in the US behind him, he actually believed it. Proof? In a private conversation with then French president Jaques Chirac, he had told him that he wanted to invade Iraq because he saw 'Gog and Magog' are at work there. Go ahead, google that.

Eastern Christian extremists? Russian church called the intervention in Syria a 'holy war'.

Buddhist extremists? There are Buddhist monks who have been committing nothing short of genocide against Muslims in Myanmar. 

Jewish extremists? Israeli atrocities against Palestinians...

And we can go on and on and on...

 

So why does there seem to be a difference between all of these and Islamic extremist terror? That is because in the media and the mainstream discussion of terror by religious extremists that aren't Muslim are either complete ignored and swept under the rug or all the context and every single possible justification is given to distract from the religious extremists aspects. 

There's not that strong believe in God there. There are no real fanatics in Christian. For example USA, Russia and others are going to middle east for a different reason. They are not killing people and saying that's what God told them to do. All they want is oil. Meanwhile, ISIS or other organisations make it clear that they do revenge with a permission of Allah. That's fanatics

[kellzfresh 7,229]

13 minutes ago, Tautvix said:

There's not that strong believe in God there. There are no real fanatics in Christian. For example USA, Russia and others are going to middle east for a different reason. They are not killing people and saying that's what God told them to do. All they want is oil. Meanwhile, ISIS or other organisations make it clear that they do revenge with a permission of Allah. That's fanatics

Presidents do what they do in the interest of their country or corrupt organizations, but religious leaders do their preaching or actions in the interest of their religion. Examples of such religious leaders are that of Iran's supreme leader, who preaches death to America and the west, death to Israel and the young followers end up growing with that mentality of wanting to kill Israelis or Westerners. 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

2 minutes ago, Tautvix said:

There's not that strong believe in God there. There are no real fanatics in Christian. For example USA, Russia and others are going to middle east for a different reason. They are not killing people and saying that's what God told them to do. All they want is oil. Meanwhile, ISIS or other organisations make it clear that they do revenge with a permission of Allah. That's fanatics

George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq' 

But THAT is exactly the difference. In western media and mainstream discussion, you talk about the economic and geopolitical motives behind the apparent religious extremist reasoning that, in these cases, Bush and the Russian church give. But you never talk about the underlying economic and geopolitical causes of the rise of extremists groups likes ISIS like the Nato invasion of Iraq and dismantling of its army, like the Nato intervention in Lybia, like the global drone terror campaign, like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, like Western bias on Israel/Palestine...etc.

If you actually ask people in the middle east why they view the US and western European countries, particularly France and UK, unfavorably, you will get those exact answers. In some extreme cases, that unfavorable view pushes people to joining religious extremist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. In these cases, religion is a tool used to channel the hate and enable this kind of violence. But even without religion that hate would still exist.

This, btw, is no way to excuse any of the members of these groups or justify their actions, but if you want to stop this kind of terrorism, you'll have to address its root causes. 

 

[manpe 10,861]

8 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

Okay, I get that the Christian extremists on here are letting out all of their bigotry and irrational fear mongering, but please tell me YOU don't actually believe that bullshit?!

Only Muslim extremists have committed mass murder in recent history?!

Christian extremists? To give just one example, by far the biggest atrocity of this century is the Iraq invasion. George Bush said that God told him to do it. And that wasn't just some bullshit he said in public to get the religious extremists in the US behind him, he actually believed it. Proof? In a private conversation with then French president Jaques Chirac, he had told him that he wanted to invade Iraq because he saw 'Gog and Magog' are at work there. Go ahead, google that.

Eastern Christian extremists? Russian church called the intervention in Syria a 'holy war'.

Buddhist extremists? There are Buddhist monks who have been committing nothing short of genocide against Muslims in Myanmar. 

Jewish extremists? Israeli atrocities against Palestinians...

And we can go on and on and on...

 

So why does there seem to be a difference between all of these and Islamic extremist terror? That is because in the media and the mainstream discussion of terror by religious extremists that aren't Muslim are either complete ignored and swept under the rug or all the context and every single possible justification is given to distract from the religious extremists aspects. 

What USA did in ME was clearly political and religion was far from the main driving force behind it. Besides, it was a war declared against terrorism by a state. Not your conventional terrorism and not comparable to the point I was trying to make. But I agree that USA in essence is a terrorist state, except it's not religiously motivated despite what that puppet Bush might have said a few times. Religion was never brought as the main excuse and the soldiers committing those atrocities certainly didn't follow orders because "Jesus said so" or because it's written in some horribly outdated book.

I'm not saying ISIS doesn't have political agendas, they clearly do, but the difference is that they are openly waging war against non-Muslims. I don't remember the last time some other religion's extremist groups did that on such a massive scale. Actually any time we see muslims committing acts of terror, they always have religious motives (Allah or some prophet told them to do it, basically). Their numbers are frightening and it's growing. Radical islam has crossed borders and is a real issue concerning several continents now. I'm yet to see other religious extremists have such effect.

Russian church calling something holy war isn't terrorism. What Russia did wasn't religiously motivated and not what you call conventional terrorism (i.e. purposefully infiltrating and slaughtering innocent civilians). But again, Russia itself is a terrorist state, just not religiously driven.

I don't know anything about buddhist extremism, it's not widely covered over here. I live in western media sphere which doesn't care about non-Europe/USA tragedies and this could explain my ignorance on this subject. If this genocide is aimed towards peaceful muslims for religious reasons, then I guess they are just as bad.

Jewish (Israeli) extremism towards Palestina... Is it religiously motivated?

 

Also, there is a reason why muslims in western world are feared and getting subjected to worse and worse stereotypes since 2001. You don't see other religious fanatics wreaking so much havoc. You get the odd lunatics who talk to Jesus, but nothing as massive and organized as you constantly get from the Middle East. People are afraid of normal muslims, because their extremist counterparts have done an excellent job in destroying the religion's image. What a sad state of affairs whatever way we look at it.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

12 minutes ago, manpe said:

I live in western media sphere which doesn't care about non-Europe/USA tragedies and this could explain my ignorance on this subject.

And there in lies the root of the issue.

In western media, terror committed by the west has all sorts of sophisticated political reasons while terrorism against the west is just pure barbarism and that boils down to the belief that victims in the west are people while victims not in the west are just not that important. Even though, in terms of damage and devastation, terror committed by the west is many many folds that committed against it.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to take just one sentence out of context, but the other points you made are easily refuted by facts such as by the very definition of terrorism, that is the deliberate targeting of civilians for political reasons, both the US and Russia have committed terrorism, unless you mean that US and Russian bombs are intrinsically 'civil'. You might be happy to make a distinction between them and 'conventional' terror, but I assure you that the victims of those bombs would certainly not. 

Bush said many times that his faith was involved in the decision making on Iraq and it actually had an impact. Modern Israel was created because 'God' promised them the land and majority of settlers are religious fanatics. And you can make a quick google search about Myanmar Buddhist monks. 

51 minutes ago, manpe said:

You get the odd lunatics who talk to Jesus, but nothing as massive and organized as you constantly get from the Middle East. People are afraid of normal muslims

Right there is another proof of how people fail to overview the issue and how bigoted it is view all Muslims as similar to the current extremists in the middle east. All the Muslims in the middle east barely make up 20% of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. India alone has more Muslims than all of the middle east combine. The largest Muslim majority state is by far Indonesia. And you are including them in your views about Muslims. 

[manpe 10,861]

21 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

I'm sorry, I don't mean to take just one sentence out of context, but the other points you made are easily refuted by facts such as by the very definition of terrorism, that is the deliberate targeting of civilians for political reasons, both the US and Russia have committed terrorism, unless you mean that US and Russian bombs are intrinsically 'civil'. You might be happy to make a distinction between them and 'conventional' terror, but I assure you that the victims of those bombs would certainly not. 

I know, you missed my point. My point was about terrorism based openly on religion.

 

21 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

Right there is another proof of how people fail to overview the issue and how bigoted it is view all Muslims as similar to the current extremists in the middle east. All the Muslims in the middle east barely make up 20% of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. India alone has more Muslims than all of the middle east combine. The largest Muslim majority state is by far Indonesia. And you are including them in your views about Muslims. 

It is how it is. This is the reality in west right now fuelled by the mass influx and terrorist attacks. Those are issues provoked/enabled by western greed and sheer stupidity I may add. It is hypocritical, but regular folk actually listen to their leaders and media controlled by them, otherwise they wouldn't be their leaders if regular folk hadn't chosen them. It is very easy to do propaganda and control the direction of masses once you are already surrounded and raised by some certain dominant culture and ideologies. The truth always lies somewhere in between.