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VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

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Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#141

Post by utku_karatas2 »

omginternets wrote: post #115
utku_karatas2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's my sincerest hope that French troops will be deployed to Syria in the near future This kind of thinking is exactly why Mid-east is in its current state and that is exactly the reason why ISIS was born. ISIS high command mainly consists of Iraqi ex-officers, who were rendered jobless and aimless by USA's 'liberation' attempt. Al-Qaida was a result of a 'liberation' attempt by Soviets and then consequently anoth…

I respectfully (and partially) disagree. The invasion of Iraq was stupid, reckless and selfish. It was a for-profit war that destabilized the region and allowed ISIS to take on its present form. I'll have you remember that France staunchly opposed this war. Now the US and the brits have left us with a veritable cesspool, and we're bearing the brunt of the consequences. This isn't a liberation attempt or a preemptive…

Hate to dwell on topics not suited on HN, but I'll just ask you one thing: how would the French troops on the Syrian ground even remotely help securing France?

USA can pull off its invasive politics via a) pouring insane amount of resources both militarily and politically b) by getting along pretty good with other Muslims while bombing some (like Saudis, Turks, etc.) c) by being an ocean distance away from the very people they drop bombs on.

How will France do all of that with a) much more limited resources b) while being uniformly disliked by almost all Muslim nations due to historical reasons and c) while being a boat ride away from tens of millions of agitated Muslims?

I believe, with this attack, France is pulled into this already extremely messy situation by the powers that be. And I am afraid things will escalate to a much worse situation.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#142

Post by conanbatt »

iamthepieman wrote: post #37

I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…

I have an honest question here. As a believer in the Christian faith, do you believe Angels exist? And all or some of the other supernatural tales from the bible and the faith?

I am ashamed to admit that I didn't realize until I was well after 25 that followers of the faith, some of them, really believed in such beings and that priests of the Christian faith have to at least pretend to do so as well.

I was raised catholic(I'm agnostic) and I always took "Adam and Eve" and Angels as tales and alegories, elements to tell a story.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#143

Post by Mikeb85 »

Squarel wrote: post #92
StavrosK wrote: post #2

Isn't it sad that this has to be said at all? "Hey, not every adherent of a religion supports killing innocent people of a different religion". It'd be like us having to apologize for the Crusades. Besides, the hits were driven by politics, religion is just a facade.

Indeed. I don't see anti-immigration people and Christians being asked to apologize for Breivik, nor all catholic priests being asked to distance themselves from the catholic scandal of the last decade.

> all catholic priests being asked to distance themselves from the catholic scandal of the last decade.

Catholics absolutely take heat for the various scandals over the years. It's just easier for most of them to distance themselves since few actually practice the faith...

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#144

Post by johnsea »

Eupolemos wrote: post #77
slowmotiony wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, suicide bombers shouting "Allah akhbar" is definitely political, nothing to do with religion at all.

You simply need to be more precise with your language. The terrorists desperately want this to be about religion. They want this to be about Muslims vs the rest. If they can make it that, if we in the west will believe that THAT is it, the terrorists can speak directly to all the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and recruit from them. They will justify their horrible actions vs other Muslims with the reasoning that t…

Imho of course this is about religion.

But not mainly Muslim vs. 'the rest', but within the Muslim communities: moderate, shi'its, sunnits, fundamentalists, wahabits, normal...

Most people 'of the west' are no longer deeply religious in a former Christian sense. I think many muslims are of the same not deeply religious kind. 'Problem is', that the Muslim religion has too much influence in the 'worldly' government matters in most of the (moderate) 'islamic states'. This must change.

Do you think a Daesh would care? Spit them and they shoot you. It wouldn't have been different with a Nazi in former times.

Of course you are right with your 'walk with Christian if your Muslim...' this goes without saying. But I don't see a problem here with the majority of people 'in the west'.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#145

Post by seren »

pluma wrote: post #139
Grue3 wrote: post #61

Isn't current Syrian government also guilty of perpetrating acts of genocide against its own populace? This person is quick to denounce the other side, but Assad's forces have killed thousands of civilians as well. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Syria

Better the devil you know. The reason we (i.e. "The West") left Saddam in place until the US needed an easy target after 9/11 is that despite being a dictator and mass-murderer, his reign kept Iraq relatively stable. As soon as he was taken out of the equation other forces began to fight for dominance and now we have a huge mess on our hands that's arguably worse than where we started. The same is true for most of th…

The problem with supporting dictators is that this is a powerful recruiting argument for Isis.

"Look at the West, they claim to be democracies and defend human rights, but they are supporting mass-murders here"

...which makes the West looks like a bunch of hypocrites. And this is an argument that is factually hard to counter.

Frankly, I don't know what we should be doing. I don't see a solution without a long political roadmap with likely a partition of Syria & Irak, to have an Alawite state, next to a Sunni state, next to a Shia Iraq.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#146

Post by cmdkeen »

drinchev wrote: post #95
iamthepieman wrote: post #37

I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…

Hello. I really like your honesty, courage and passion that I can sense from what you wrote. I don't want to sound offending, but you are saying that you are happy to discuss this and I have almost no contact with deep religious persons that are in IT, so I have a couple of questions. 1. Where is the boundary of your beliefs? I'm always trying to be polite with my dev co-workers, but for example if I write a flagged…

Whilst I'm not the OP I'll happily give my thoughts as a not very good Anglican - who embodies the "great Anglican fudge".

1. Offended no. I'll think you're rather rude, the same as if I wrote $manifestDestiny = false. If you know someone you can have banter with them.

2. IT has all sorts of articles of faith. vi versus emacs, I'm weird as I like nano. Religion is a way of living your life, my code is in no way affected by it. How I interact with my colleagues is, for instance I'd hope that having a nice easy rationale for being a good person makes me a decent co-worker. I'd rather not work with a hedonist who doesn't give a fig for anything other than their own happiness, and with the internet we're exposed to plenty of those.

3. I don't view evolution, the big bang etc as contradicting my religious views. Genesis has been viewed as a metaphor since the 4th century BC. Creationism and biblical literalism are relatively recent "innovations" in some Christian traditions. It isn't about the "God of the gaps", it is about science revealing more of the complex creation we inhabit whilst being incapable of answering what the prime first mover was. That said science only shows us what we can measure from the construct of our own perspective. It cannot, and does not claim to be able, to answer everything.

4. Being a member of the Church of England you have to be pretty aware of the historical context of religion! I'm not a biblical literalist and my church is not solely guided by what is in the bible. One of the reasons theology exists is to take all that knowledge and use that context to look at what we can actually divine from the bible.

Being religious doesn't make you automatically not a jerk. Neither does being "scientific" provide an alternative, science isn't a set of ethics. Up until the 1970s academic philosophy was viciously atheist (the only thing worse than a theist was an agnostic). However since then theism has enjoyed a resurgence and disciplines like epistemology have taken on the challenges raised by atheist philosophers.

As a counter-point let me ask a non-religious person, what makes an act good? Be wary of associating it with something which makes you feel "warm and fuzzy" about having done it, because then would you expect someone who did not get that same feeling to do it.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#147

Post by vdnkh »

amake wrote: post #55

> we are against their so called Islamic state, and against their retarded, barbaric version of Islam. The problem with irrational belief systems is that you have no rational basis for calling one version legit and one version "barbaric". Who's to say your interpretation is correct? Maybe theirs is. Better to recognize irrational beliefs for what they are and discard them entirely (to the degree that's possible).

"No true Scotsman"

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#148

Post by ptaipale »

Squarel wrote: post #92
StavrosK wrote: post #2

Isn't it sad that this has to be said at all? "Hey, not every adherent of a religion supports killing innocent people of a different religion". It'd be like us having to apologize for the Crusades. Besides, the hits were driven by politics, religion is just a facade.

Indeed. I don't see anti-immigration people and Christians being asked to apologize for Breivik, nor all catholic priests being asked to distance themselves from the catholic scandal of the last decade.

"I don't see anti-immigration people and Christians being asked to apologize for Breivik"

Seriously, you don't? I've seen lots of comments where this and that politician or Christian leader is required to apologize "for their involvement" in the Breivik mass murder, which is nuts. All they've done is doubt whether the removal of border controls in Europe is a good idea. That's supposed to be enough for a guilt-by-association to Breivik's crimes as "incitement".

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#149

Post by mozumder »

cygx wrote: post #64
iamthepieman wrote: post #37

I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…

Of course it's not "all Muslisms". But those who claim "it's only the terrorists" or "it's all politics" do not grasp the scope of the problem, ie that globally speaking, a significant number of adherents of Islam hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society. If you naively extrapolate from the 2013 Pew Poll The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society (which in principle represents nations with a tot…

Lots of countries have sedition acts, including the US, which would punish you for speaking out against them.

Many countries also have hate-speech laws, including France, which would punish you for speaking out against protected groups.

Being vengeful against those that are disloyal to you is a common human ethos.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#150

Post by anon4 »

tobltobs wrote: post #60
iamthepieman wrote: post #37

I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…

Have you ever thought about that mixing religion and politics might be a reason for the mess in the islamic states?

Yes. Some people have even put it very poignantly https://vimeo.com/50531435
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