Quote :

"However, I do stand by my assertion that a very influential man having had a better experience in this country might have removed a likewise major distant cause of 9/11. This cause could have been important enough that removing it might have prevented the event decades later."

Well, good for you. And you'll agree, then, that had those bastards at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts accepted poor little Adolf into their fold, the world might be about six million Jews richer. So, damn those Viennese snobs!

Quote :

"Also a misrepresentation. I said that bigotry is bad. You, evidently, disagree, as you've made it very clear that we should treat different religious groups differently."

It was a direct quote. And for heaven's sake, man, have more integrity than to call me a bigot because I acknowledge that religions are different, and should therefore be approached differently.

Quote :

"I mean, it's against the Constitution and everything America stands for, but you're entitled to think it, I guess."

There are certainly many constitutions and legal systems across the globe under which blasphemy and other religious criticism is disallowed, but the Constitution of the United States sure as hell isn't one of them.

Quote :

"I would say that the most fervent and devout Muslims are similar enough to fervent and devout members of remotely comparable religious groupings -- Catholic, Protestant, Hindu."

Certain strains, under certain conditions, perhaps. But the reality is that even the most fanatical Southern Baptists, in the event that some newspaper in Karachi published some insulting caricatures of Christ, would not take to the streets, burn down embassies, assassinate Middle Eastern looking people, and demand that governments outlaw media outlets.

I understand completely that the reasons for that are more complex than just religion. However, you cannot deny that the particular strain of Islam, namely Islamism, which is prevalent in many Muslim countries, and which is nevertheless derived from the religion's foundational texts, is an integral factor in all of this. As such, to say that I should treat Islam, or at least this particular strain of it, as if it were no different from American Presbyterianism, is totally fatuous.

[Edited on May 21, 2010 at 10:00 AM. Reason : ]

5/21/2010 9:54:22 AM

strain?

5/21/2010 1:06:55 PM

Religion is a virus, obviously

5/21/2010 1:10:06 PM

Quote :

"And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion – rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."

- Mitt Romney, in his horrible religion speech

5/21/2010 1:40:38 PM

Quote :

" If Rauf really wants people to feel better about Muslims, he should move his mosque further away from ground zero of the worst Muslim attack ever on U.S. soil."

Muslim attack? Was the OKC Bombing a Christian attack?

There's no reason to keep this from happening.

5/21/2010 3:34:47 PM

Given the facts of both terrorists attacks, I don't think it would be applicable to call OKC a Christian attack.

Whereas one of the stated motives of 9/11 was due to American troops being in the holy land of Saudi Arabia.

Quote :

"At that second meeting, we spoke about what he was fighting for, and what he hated. At first, he told me, he had been opposed to the Americans because of their military presence in Saudi Arabia and because he felt they were too near to Mecca. That was a provocation to the entire Muslim world, he said."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/26/afghanistan.terrorism3

Note, this isn't the only motivation. Bin Laden also states our involvement with Israel, and westernization threatening fundamentalist Islamic values.

So it's not unfair to call it a Muslim attack. That's not to suggest that it is endorsed by every Muslim, only that the motivations for the attack were Muslim in nature. If no one believed in Holy Land, it probably wouldn't have happened.

Granted, if no one believed in David Koresh, OKC probably would never have happened. The more I think about this, though, is questionable. Ruby Ridge was a big motivator....proving even more that calling OKC a Christian attack doesn't make sense.

[Edited on May 21, 2010 at 4:02 PM. Reason : more]

5/21/2010 3:54:48 PM

Quote :

"And you'll agree, then, that had those bastards at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts accepted poor little Adolf into their fold, the world might be about six million Jews richer."

The key difference being that there's nothing innately wrong with not letting shitty artists into art schools. There is something wrong with treating somebody like shit because he's brown and has a different religion than you.

The other important distinction is that it's pretty easy to see how treating someone like shit could cause them to dislike you. It's not easy to predict that denying a student's application would lead to dictatorship, war, and genocide. I don't think it's an unrealistic standard I'm setting here.

Quote :

"It was a direct quote. And for heaven's sake, man, have more integrity than to call me a bigot because I acknowledge that religions are different, and should therefore be approached differently."

It was a direct quote of me using your words. And I'm calling you a bigot because in this forum you seem to put a great deal of emphasis on bashing Muslims. If that's how you're going to approach things differently, you're a fucking bigot.

Quote :

"Certain strains, under certain conditions, perhaps. But the reality is that even the most fanatical Southern Baptists..."

Well I think you have your answer. Under certain conditions you can create your pack of bastards. Southern Baptists have it pretty good right now, so it shouldn't be surprising that they aren't quite so easy to get rioting and burning.

Quote :

"However, you cannot deny that the particular strain of Islam, namely Islamism, which is prevalent in many Muslim countries, and which is nevertheless derived from the religion's foundational texts, is an integral factor in all of this. As such, to say that I should treat Islam, or at least this particular strain of it, as if it were no different from American Presbyterianism, is totally fatuous. "

You typically don't make any distinction between the one and a third billion Muslims and the Islamist faction. That's a big chunk of my problem with you. Even when you do make some distinction, as in the quote above, you are quick to tie the two closely together again. You pay lip service to other factors -- vastly more important factors -- and that's it.

And I would go so far as to say that in the relevant capacities American Presbyterianism is a fine comparison. It isn't as if the Christian Bible is devoid of calls to and justifications for violence. If all the Presbyterians suffered a long downward slide, were left under bad political leadership without much money or prospects, and got surrounded by frequently violent enemies, you could probably create a sizable "Presbyterianist" faction without too much trouble.

Likewise if the Muslims were a moderately wealthy people concentrated in the United States without nearby enemies and with (relatively) tolerable political leaders, they'd be as dreadfully dull as Presbyterians.

There is no point in worrying about the religion much. If we could change everything but their religion for the better the problem would be solved.

5/21/2010 4:51:07 PM

Quote :

"There is no point in worrying about the religion much. If we could change everything but their religion for the better the problem would be solved."

This is complete non sequitur. My wheel is broken, but if we could just change all of the roads to accommodate it's brokenness, the problem would be solved. There is no point worrying about the wheel too much.

Changing everything else about humanity to make beliefs about mysticism less damaging to humanity is way more insane than suggesting that we just get rid of the mysticism.

5/21/2010 5:05:10 PM

Quote :

"This is complete non sequitur. My wheel is broken, but if we could just change all of the roads to accommodate it's brokenness, the problem would be solved. There is no point worrying about the wheel too much. "

If we're stuck with fucked up wheels, then we might as well work on the roads.

I hear your overall complaint against religion. I don't agree with it, but I hear it. Given two improbable choices -- the elimination of religion on one hand, and the fixing of other major social ills on the other -- I guess I take the latter as being more important and helpful in the long run.

And it is by no means a non-sequitur. If it turns out that issues other than religion cause most of the problems, then religion cannot be the main problem. You may disagree with the logic, certainly -- but it doesn't come out of left field.

[Edited on May 22, 2010 at 4:36 AM. Reason : whoops]

5/22/2010 4:35:49 AM

Quote :

"And I would go so far as to say that in the relevant capacities American Presbyterianism is a fine comparison. It isn't as if the Christian Bible is devoid of calls to and justifications for violence. If all the Presbyterians suffered a long downward slide, were left under bad political leadership without much money or prospects, and got surrounded by frequently violent enemies, you could probably create a sizable "Presbyterianist" faction without too much trouble."

This is exactly right. And the two critical points I would make are:

1. This is a hypothetical scenario, which is why you don't see me making a fuss about the Presbyterians. It's also the only reason. If Presbyterians (oh, ok, if the most fervent Presbyterians...) were wreaking havoc across the globe, killing innocent people, warring against democratic governments, and attempting to rot free societies from within, you can be sure that I would have a thing or two to say about them.

2. As you correctly point out, the foundational texts of the Presbyterians do in fact give justification for violence (of the sort that modern, civilized people would find unwarranted). And so it should not be particularly controversial if, in the context of the above hypothetical, those fervent Presbyterians were using the Bible to justify their violence, and to rally other Presbyterians to their cause, that I would then point to the Presbyterian ideology itself as one of the major problems.

You seem to think that all ideologies are the same, and that the only thing that matters is the environment in which the ideology exists. Do I need to explain how this is abject relativism on your part?

[Edited on May 22, 2010 at 11:24 AM. Reason : ]

5/22/2010 11:21:40 AM

All ideologies are not the same. However, any given group, under certain negative conditions, will develop violent radicals. It doesn't particularly matter what defines that group, merely that it is defined.

5/22/2010 3:00:23 PM

That is true... It is human nature.

However, the communal reaction of that group to those radicals measures the groups value to society.

5/22/2010 3:02:43 PM

Uh...OK. So where exactly would you put Muslim's value to society?

5/22/2010 3:12:49 PM

certainly below a lot of other more peaceful communities.

5/22/2010 3:14:06 PM

Quote :

"All ideologies are not the same. However, any given group, under certain negative conditions, will develop violent radicals. It doesn't particularly matter what defines that group, merely that it is defined."

In other words, ideology doesn't matter, only the conditions do. Islam, Christianity, fascism, liberalism, capitalism, communism, none of these matter. The only thing that matters are the economic conditions, which, of course, cannot in any way be the result of any underlying ideology. This is pure, abject, relativism.

5/22/2010 4:17:45 PM

I don't recall having said anything about how certain conditions come about. Nor do I recall saying that the only thing that matters are economic conditions. Political conditions are another important factor, which brings me to the fact that religion and politics are different animals.

5/22/2010 5:04:37 PM

nevermind the fact that religion and politics are inextricably intertwined in most muslim countries


dude. seriously, the whole, "look at me I'm a conservative capable of independent thought" bit is getting old. If you're going to pretend like you're an independent thinker then the least you could do for yourself is think intelligently.

5/22/2010 7:16:35 PM

Quote :

"nevermind the fact that religion and politics are inextricably intertwined in most muslim countries "

I think it's fairly obvious from my posts that I think this linkage is largely coincidental. Arab Christians get the same shitty end of the stick as Arab Muslims, as do Moderate Arab Muslims (and, as in the case of one of my good Hindu friends, brown-skinned people with beards who I guess look a little Muslim/Arab to dumb-ass people)

Quote :

"If you're going to pretend like you're an independent thinker then the least you could do for yourself is think intelligently."

I don't think I'm an independent thinker at all. I want to execute a fuck-ton of people in this country. Of people who don't live in this country, there's more than a few I'd like our soldiers to shoot in the face. But acting as though Islam -- which incorporates more than a billion fucking people -- is the ultimate bad guy, well, that's fucking stupid.

Deal with assholes, not people who happen to be in the same very broad category as assholes.

5/23/2010 3:45:52 AM

Quote :

"I think this linkage is largely coincidental."

then you're an ignorant bastard.

5/23/2010 9:07:56 AM

Quote :

"If no one believed in Holy Land, it probably wouldn't have happened."

There is so much wrong with this statement.

If you had said "If no one believed communism was evil and we never felt like we had to stick to the Soviets, it probably wouldn't have happened," it would have made more sense. Our presence in the middle east is directly linked to our political actions during the Cold War, and if we had never been there, it is logical to think 9/11 would not have been likely to happen.

5/24/2010 3:03:25 AM

Bin Laden himself demanded that the infidels GTFO the Holy Land of Saudi Arabia.

Let me put it this way. If they didn't believe in mystic bullshit, then they wouldn't be able to use it as an excuse to convince other people who believe in mystic bullshit to hate America.

Yes, if we were totally isolationist we probably would never have been attacked. Wait, history has shown us that that really isn't the case.

5/24/2010 11:23:10 AM

Quote :

"I think it's fairly obvious from my posts that I think this linkage is largely coincidental."

And there you have it. Islam, you will all be surprised to learn, is only coincidentally related to the politics of those groups whose primary goal is to impose Islamic governance throughout the world.

Quote :

"I don't recall having said anything about how certain conditions come about. "

Well, I don't see how there could possibly be a causal relationship if the two variables (ideology and conditions) are purely coincidental.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 2:00 PM. Reason : ]

5/24/2010 1:55:02 PM

Quote :

"Islam, you will all be surprised to learn, is only coincidentally related to the politics of those groups whose primary goal is to impose Islamic governance throughout the world."

No, no, no! Jesus. Obviously in theocratic organizations religion and politics are in contact. I'm saying that theocratic organizations arose in those places for reasons unrelated to any unique characteristics of Islam.

Quote :

"Well, I don't see how there could possibly be a causal relationship if the two variables (ideology and conditions) are purely coincidental."

As I said, political ideology -- at least when put into practice -- has a substantial effect on conditions. Even if your political system is theocratic, the religion associated with the theocracy is less important than the problems associated with theocratic rule in general: corruption, intolerance, stifling of scientific achievement, etc.

Religion is less important. Islam didn't make some Muslims poor, didn't make the Ottoman Empire back the wrong horse in WWI, thereby losing many of its lands to oh-so-effective colonial powers. Incompetent government did these and many other things. Islam didn't make the Jews want to move back to Israel to take land from a bunch of displaced people with nowhere to go and nothing to do but be angry.

Islam didn't cause a shit-ton of oil to exist in the Arabian peninsula, without which foreign interest and interference in the region would be minimal and without which it would be harder to prop up superwealthy ruling families. Nor did it cause the United States to overthrow Iran's government and install a corrupt, incompetent dictator.

I would argue that the above factors are absolutely crucial to the existence of violent Islamist extremism today. Not one of them could reasonably said to be caused by the tenets of faith of Islam.

5/24/2010 2:41:37 PM

Quote :

"As I said, political ideology -- at least when put into practice -- has a substantial effect on conditions. Even if your political system is theocratic, the religion associated with the theocracy is less important than the problems associated with theocratic rule in general: corruption, intolerance, stifling of scientific achievement, etc."

Corruption I'll give you. Almost all human organizations are corrupt, and especially churches. To attempt to disassociate intolerance and the stifling of scientific achievement from the religion however is asinine. These wouldn't exist in the theocracy without the theism. These are entirely dependent on the religion that the theocracy is based on.

And I'll agree the the shit in the Middle East is way more complex than "religion did it". I'm not sure I heard Osama Bin Laden claim that his battle against America had anything to do with the Shahs, however. What I do know is that terrorists are driven to become martyrs because they are being manipulated through their beliefs.

5/24/2010 3:46:01 PM

I don't like it, but it is private property...

5/24/2010 4:16:53 PM

Quote :

"Islam didn't make the Jews want to move back to Israel to take land from a bunch of displaced people with nowhere to go and nothing to do but be angry. "

unbelievable.

5/24/2010 4:30:45 PM

I should have responded to that with "Yeah, but Judaism (and by extension Christianity) did."

5/24/2010 4:41:36 PM

Quote :

"Almost all human organizations are corrupt, and especially churches."

rofl.

Quote :

"And I'll agree the the shit in the Middle East is way more complex than "religion did it". I'm not sure I heard Osama Bin Laden claim that his battle against America had anything to do with the Shahs, however. What I do know is that terrorists are driven to become martyrs because they are being manipulated through their beliefs."

you are the last person in the soapbox to use 'I do know' in the same sentence as anything associated with religion or the Middle East. I do know you have proven that much at least.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 4:55 PM. Reason : .]

5/24/2010 4:53:56 PM

Quote :

"I'm saying that theocratic organizations arose in those places for reasons unrelated to any unique characteristics of Islam."

Islamism is just as much at the core, and indeed at the root, of the Muslim world's problems as any of the other issues you mentioned. And you cannot tell me that Islamism, with its calls for sharia, jihad, and martyrdom, is unrelated to Islam.

No one denies that there other serious issues at hand, but it simply cannot be said with any seriousness that Islam is not the fuel for the Islamist fire that burns across much of the Muslim world and, increasingly, in the West.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 6:48 PM. Reason : ]

5/24/2010 6:46:50 PM

Quote :

"Islamism is just as much at the core, and indeed at the root, of the Muslim world's problems as any of the other issues you mentioned."

Gotta add Imperialism to really get the picture.

5/24/2010 6:51:16 PM

Quote :

"To attempt to disassociate intolerance and the stifling of scientific achievement from the religion however is asinine. These wouldn't exist in the theocracy without the theism."

There are a great many people in former communist countries who would disagree. This would be a case where an atheistic ideology was both intolerant and oppressive towards any thinking that violated its own worldview.

Quote :

"What I do know is that terrorists are driven to become martyrs because they are being manipulated through their beliefs."

Certainly. And the same thing has been achieved without religion. I refer you to the other thread in which the Tamil Tigers were discussed at some length.

Quote :

"unbelievable."

Please, Solinari, I beg you -- explain.

Quote :

"Islamism is just as much at the core, and indeed at the root, of the Muslim world's problems as any of the other issues you mentioned. And you cannot tell me that Islamism, with its calls for sharia, jihad, and martyrdom, is unrelated to Islam. "

OK, I'm gonna say it:

YOU GODDAMN IDIOT: Please tell me how that makes Islam different from any of the world's other major religions.

If it were Christians in the geopolitical situation that Muslims now occupy, do you not think it would be the same thing, except with people calling them "Christianist" zealots with calls for "Christian Law," "Holy War," and (here's a shock, given the history) "martyrdom"?

Whether or not the people are Muslim is irrelevant. The religion in question just provides the window dressing.

5/25/2010 3:42:11 AM

Quote :

"There are a great many people in former communist countries who would disagree. This would be a case where an atheistic ideology was both intolerant and oppressive towards any thinking that violated its own worldview."

Atheism is not an ideology. It's the lack of theistic ideology. The intolerance and oppression you're referring to stems from the establishment crushing opposition to maintain it's power. Granted, I'm not saying that theocracy isn't motivated in the same way, but communists aren't specifically against technology nor against religious belief because of their lack of belief. The communist rulers are against anything that would undermine their rule.

Quote :

"And the same thing has been achieved without religion."

So what? We should get rid of every ideology that supports this shit.

5/25/2010 8:49:17 AM

Quote :

"YOU GODDAMN IDIOT: Please tell me how that makes Islam different from any of the world's other major religions. If it were Christians in the geopolitical situation that Muslims now occupy, do you not think it would be the same thing, except with people calling them "Christianist" zealots with calls for "Christian Law," "Holy War," and (here's a shock, given the history) "martyrdom"? Whether or not the people are Muslim is irrelevant. The religion in question just provides the window dressing."

I see absolutely no reason why I should assume that that would be the case. Religions, in their innumerable forms, are not carbon copies of each other. Furthermore, I'm not sure why you just assume that all post-colonial societies need be characterized by religious fundamentalism.

Quote :

"The religion in question just provides the window dressing."

If you think Islam is just window dressing in the Muslim world, then you don't know anything about the Muslim world.

Quote :

"Certainly. And the same thing has been achieved without religion."

I think this is really the weak part of your argument. You're basically saying that, because there are some other motivations for extremism, we must not therefore consider the motivations. Because in some hypothetical world, some particularly primitive strain of Christianity might respond in the same way that Islam has responded to the real world, we must therefore drop Islam from the equation. It's a very weird logic game you're playing.

[Edited on May 25, 2010 at 10:59 AM. Reason : ]

5/25/2010 10:46:15 AM

Quote :

"Atheism is not an ideology. It's the lack of theistic ideology. The intolerance and oppression you're referring to stems from the establishment crushing opposition to maintain it's power. "

I see, so a secular man commits evil because he's evil, and a religious man commits evil because he's religious. Nice double standard there.

Quote :

"Mitt Romney, in his horrible religion speech"

Isnt that redundant, coming from you?

5/25/2010 11:11:10 AM

What?

We're talking about beliefs in mysticism as motivation or rationale for actions. Whether a person actually commits those actions is entirely up to them. But if they didn't have that motivation or rationale, why would they commit such actions?

Yes, there are non-religious reasons why people can be douchebags. As I asked Grumpy, so what? Just because religion and other things are both bad doesn't mean that religion gets a pass.

5/25/2010 11:16:23 AM

You won't acknowledge that religion can prevent people from doing evil.

An intelligent, yet obtuse man once said "Good men will do good, and evil men will do evil. Only religion can make good men do evil". He wouldn't acknowledge that religion can also make evil men do good.

5/25/2010 11:27:00 AM

So what if it can? It does more harm than good. I have repeatedly acknowledged that good things have and do come out of religion. It simply is not enough good to justify believing in mysticism and rejecting reality. I know I've said this many times before. Religion is a NET negative.

5/25/2010 1:38:16 PM

Quote :

"Isnt that redundant, coming from you?"

It wasn't horrible because it was about religion. It was horrible because its thesis was that the United States is a country for believers of all faiths, just not for those filthy non-believers. In other words, "hey, I may be a Mormon, but at least I'm not an atheist!"

5/25/2010 1:39:40 PM

Quote :

"Atheism is not an ideology. It's the lack of theistic ideology. The intolerance and oppression you're referring to stems from the establishment crushing opposition to maintain it's power. Granted, I'm not saying that theocracy isn't motivated in the same way, but communists aren't specifically against technology nor against religious belief because of their lack of belief."

I didn't say atheism was an ideology. I said that communism was an atheistic ideology. And yes, Communists from Marx on down are specifically against religious belief.

Quote :

" Furthermore, I'm not sure why you just assume that all post-colonial societies need be characterized by religious fundamentalism. "

No. Post-colonial societies tend to be left in a disadvantaged position in a number of respects, which makes makes it easier for things like religious fundamentalism to take hold.

Quote :

"If you think Islam is just window dressing in the Muslim world, then you don't know anything about the Muslim world."

It's not window dressing on the Muslim world, it's window dressing on that particular type of extremism. There are all kinds of violent extremists, all over the world, with different "flavors." I just don't think the flavors are all that important when we put them next to the basic, shared formula for such groups. You take a handful of relatively wealthy and educated guys who are a little crazy, put them in charge of a bunch of relatively poor, uneducated people who feel that their way of life is threatened and who have little in the way of opportunities. It's al Qaeda, it's the Ku Klux Klan, it's whatever. You can insert "Muslim" or "White Christian" or whatever at a few points in that formula and it really doesn't make that much difference.

Quote :

"You're basically saying that, because there are some other motivations for extremism, we must not therefore consider the motivations."

If a religion -- or religion in general -- turns out not to be a necessary condition for extremism to exist, I'm not sure why we should bother worrying about it. If we magically got rid of the religion of Islam tomorrow there would still be violent extremism among the people who were formerly Muslim. So what was the point in getting rid of the Islam? (And since yes, I get it, you don't like religion in general, go ahead and substitute that for Islam and it's the same damn thing.)

Quote :

"Yes, there are non-religious reasons why people can be douchebags. As I asked Grumpy, so what?"

Again, if we get rid of the religion and the world is still full of douchebags then what was the point, except "Disco_stu didn't like religion and now it's gone"

Quote :

"Religion is a NET negative."

Pretty baseless claim, don't you think? It may be so -- but you can't possibly have any solid evidence for saying its so. Religion motivates enormous charitable contributions and efforts every year. There are people all over the world who are fed, clothed, housed, and given medical treatment because of religious institutions. Sure, some of those people would be charitable anyway -- and some, like me, normally need to be guilted into handing over the money for the second collection plate.

5/25/2010 3:06:11 PM

Can we make a dedicated thread for disco_stu to post his views on religion? This way we can keep all other threads free of his obtuse, misinformed, bigoted posts on religion.

5/25/2010 3:12:00 PM

lol @ bigoted.

Golvoko, how about you show me how my views are obtuse, misinformed, or bigoted. If you actually posted something worth half a shit, maybe you could convince me of such.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
God damn it, Golvoko, I'm not going to let you derail me from people actually conversing again.

Grumpy:
There's nothing to say we can't evaluate what causes people to be douchebags and address it. At least if people are being douchebags for a reason other than "God says so" the reasons may be something we can analyze, falsify, and convince them not to be douchebags. My beef with religion is applicable to any form of mysticism, superstition, or psuedoscience, especially when it leads to actions, and especially when it's exploitative.

Sure, I can't number the exact amount of good or bad the presence of religion has had in humanity. And yes, it's total conjecture to say that humanity will be better off without it. I just wonder how many people died because modern medicine wasn't developed sooner. Or that stem cell research is so religiously opposed. It's impossible to quantify the damage that religion has (and continues) to do to scientific progress, but it's immense and I'd wager it's far greater than all the charity that religious organizations output, especially since said scientific progress could have been used to alleviate the problems that necessitate the charity.




[Edited on May 25, 2010 at 3:40 PM. Reason : grumpy]

5/25/2010 3:16:46 PM

Go back and read any post you've made that involves religion (which is most of them) to answer your own question. Then make a thread and whine about your hatred of religion there.

Your posts are completely worthless because all you've done is attack religion and religious people with your bullshit. "You must be dumb if you have faith, dur dur"

Quote :

"If you actually posted something worth half a shit"

I will not apologize for my posts and views being beyond your comprehension. That sounds like a personal problem for you and is not of my concern.

Quote :

"god damn it"

if you do not believe in a god, why do you use such a phrase?

[Edited on May 25, 2010 at 3:43 PM. Reason : .]

5/25/2010 3:28:32 PM

I'm not certain why I'm responding to you. It's a colloquialism that I've picked up over the years to express frustration.

I also don't believe in unicorns, but I use the word from time to time.

5/25/2010 3:53:56 PM

unicorn damn it.

5/25/2010 3:55:42 PM

Quote :

"If a religion -- or religion in general -- turns out not to be a necessary condition for extremism to exist, I'm not sure why we should bother worrying about it. "

Gee whiz! Turns out, Nazism isn't a necessary condition for genocide to exist, so why the fuck did we bother worrying about Nazism? Nazism was clearly just window dressing for the Hitler regime. Any country experiencing the economic conditions of 1930s Germany would obviously suffer the same exact fate, regardless of the prevailing ideology.

HIV/AIDS can cause of premature death. But then, so can syphilis. Therefore, why bother addressing HIV/AIDS? I mean, after all, if people are having lots of unprotected sex, there's a decent chance they'll contract some nasty disease or another. Perhaps we just just stop researching HIV/AIDS altogether and focus exclusively on condom distribution.

We worry about Islamic extremism because Islamic extremism exists. Islam is the fundamental basis Islamic extremism, which is why we "bother worrying about it". To say that we can't address a disease by examining its root cause is completely fucking idiotic. But, hey, I guess no one will call you a bigot.

[Edited on May 25, 2010 at 4:26 PM. Reason : ]

5/25/2010 4:23:18 PM

First, to disco_stu:

You can't analyze, falsify, and convince people out of religion, but you're going to be able to do it with all the other causes of their asshattery?

And have you ever stopped to consider that some people are just pricks? That there isn't a rhyme or reason to it, that there isn't some misunderstanding on their part that could be corrected and stop them being pricks?

A big part of my problem with your whole position is that anything that in any way touches religion gets painted completely with a religious brush. It also assumes that without religion, we will develop a morality that fixes any of the problems you mention. It certainly doesn't require religion to be opposed to, say, stem cell research -- it just takes some ambiguity on where life begins and whether or not it's OK to perform medical research on people you kill.

I guess what it comes down to is that you see the religion as a cause of certain problems more often than I do, and I tend to think more often that religion is peripheral to the problem.

---

Now, onto lazarus:

Quote :

"Turns out, Nazism isn't a necessary condition for genocide to exist, so why the fuck did we bother worrying about Nazism?"

Whoa there nelly, I never said you couldn't worry about somebody who wanted to kill you. Al Qaeda and them? Fuck those guys. Shoot the hell out of them. But just like we weren't against all Germans I'm not against all Muslims, and you, quite clearly, are.

Quote :

"Any country experiencing the economic conditions of 1930s Germany would obviously suffer the same exact fate, regardless of the prevailing ideology."

Not just economic conditions -- there were ethnic, political, and historical ones as well. And the point is that those conditions would cause a similar ideology to prevail.

And "exact" there is a bullshit word, too. I never said results would be exactly the same, because that would be stupid. They will, however, be similar enough.

Quote :

"Perhaps we just just stop researching HIV/AIDS altogether and focus exclusively on condom distribution."

Well, if everyone used condoms when they had sex (and you took a few other precautions involving, say, blood), you would eradicate HIV and syphilis and all the rest. It would be the ideal way of approaching it.

But there's the little issue of practicality. It is impossible to get everyone to use a condom all the time. So you're left with no choice but to tackle the diseases one by one, curing or vaccinating against each. It's immensely inefficient.

Meanwhile, your apparent approach of breaking up "violent extremism" into little sections and attacking them one by one is immensely inefficient and completely impractical. You're no more likely to eradicate religion (or even just Islam) than you are to ensure 100% condom use. Your system is the worst of all worlds.

5/25/2010 7:07:06 PM

Quote :

"Whoa there nelly, I never said you couldn't worry about somebody who wanted to kill you. Al Qaeda and them? Fuck those guys. Shoot the hell out of them. But just like we weren't against all Germans I'm not against all Muslims, and you, quite clearly, are."

You've missed the point entirely. According to your logic, Nazism - as in, the ideology of Nationalist Socialism - could not have had anything to do with what happened in 1930s Germany. It was just window dressing, and should therefore have been ignored, almost as if it didn't even exist. Indeed, to even suggest that Nazism is different from any other ideology, or that it might have played a pivotal role creating the environment that eventually led to World War II, is to be bigoted against Germans.

Quote :

"You're no more likely to eradicate religion (or even just Islam) than you are to ensure 100% condom use. "

I think you've mistaken which of the two of us wants to focus only on certain factors while ignoring others - a suggestion you base on the paltry logic that, if one factor is not exclusive in its ability to create certain negative outcomes, we should therefore ignore that factor altogether.

I should add that, if any of the arguments we've made should be seen as bigoted, it should be this one. I think it's incredibly insulting to suggest that Muslims, or any other group of people, are somehow incapable reforming their opinions on religion, just because they live under certain conditions. Not only is this argument ahistorical, it also implies that people are inherently hopeless. I, meanwhile, only argue that certain ideologies are hopeless.

[Edited on May 25, 2010 at 8:32 PM. Reason : ]

5/25/2010 8:22:21 PM

Quote :

"According to your logic, Nazism - as in, the ideology of Nationalist Socialism - could not have had anything to do with what happened in 1930s Germany. It was just window dressing, and should therefore have been ignored, almost as if it didn't even exist."

No. National Socialism (with its German-centric bent) is a product of the environment it started in. It derived from a basic level of German patriotism (understandable, coming from Germans), yes; but that patriotism doesn't produce genocide and war unless it is first changed in the cauldron of its situation.

Nazism is obviously different from German patriotism or even nationalism. In the same way, Islamism is obviously different from Islam in general. You're the one who seems to think that German people liking Germany is the fundamental root cause of Nazism. Or, wait, not really. Because you have a boner for picking on Muslims.

Quote :

"the paltry logic that, if one factor is not exclusive in its ability to create certain negative outcomes, we should therefore ignore that factor altogether. "

If one can demonstrate that a certain factor is not essential to an outcome, I don't see why you shouldn't focus on the factors that are essential to the outcome. That's how you fix the problem.

Kudos to you for completely ignoring your demolished STD argument, by the way.

Quote :

"I think it's incredibly insulting to suggest that Muslims, or any other group of people, are somehow incapable reforming their opinions on religion, just because they live under certain conditions."

How is this bigoted? It applies to all people. You take any group, and put them under certain adverse effects, and sooner or later you'll get a violent fringe group out of it.

I'm the one sitting here saying that, by and large, these groups are resistant to changes brought about their conditions. It's why most of the 1.3 billion Muslims on the face of the fucking planet AREN'T trying to blow anybody up. You're the one trying to say that their being Muslim is causing them to want to blow things up.

Quote :

"it also implies that people are inherently hopeless. I, meanwhile, only argue that certain ideologies are hopeless."

ALL PEOPLE HAVE IDEOLOGIES. Some of them aren't religious. Doesn't mean they don't have them. You're a good secular atheist/agnostic. Do you agree perfectly, 100%, with every other secular atheist/agnostic you've ever met? No? IT'S BECAUSE OF IDEOLOGY. There'll be Communists, fascists, republicans, democrats, greens, etc. If your argument is, "If everyone was the same we wouldn't fight," then I don't disagree with you. I disagree that there's any point in even fantasizing about such an outcome, however.

You and disco_stu are both doomed to failure because you have a pretend world -- no less pretend than my God -- that if you got rid of the "non-scientific"* ideas like religion we'd all agree. We won't. And as long as we don't agree, sooner or later there will be somebody willing to blow somebody else up.

*-that's in quotation marks because everybody would just disagree about which ideas were scientific/logical/whatever word you want to use there.

---

So -- if you made the world such that everybody had reasonably equal opportunities in life, wasn't abjectly poor, and no group felt threatened by another group, then we'd be fine. If you made a world without religion but with all of those other things intact, we'd still have violent fringe groups doing terrible things to each other.

Excluding the mentally deranged and such, that's what I'm thinking.

5/26/2010 4:00:26 AM

Your problem is that you're assuming that we think the world would be perfect without religion. It would just be better. Yes, people would still kill other people. Perhaps people would still blow themselves up killing other people. But I have hope for humanity that given one less divisive attribute we could exist together more easily. And I can only imagine how prosperous our species would be if even a fraction of the brainpower wasted on organized religion was directed to science.

5/26/2010 7:40:12 AM

^ lol

is that so... Must be nice to live in a fantasy world. You sound just like some southern baptists I know when they describe how good it would be if everyone believed in Jesus

[Edited on May 26, 2010 at 7:52 AM. Reason : ]

5/26/2010 7:50:48 AM