VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by crusso » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:35 PM UTC

arca_vorago wrote: post #164

Amezarak wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, there is an unconfortable number of Christians who do have a fundamentalist mindset, too (although I didn't find any exact numbers). Even fundamentalist Christians don't have divine commandments to kill apostates. Nor do atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or Jews (well, they do, but it hasn't been in force since the Exile.) This is a false equivalency.

Funny though, how the fundamentalists christians have killed many more muslims than muslims have killed christians. I really dislike this, "but xtians are less violent than muslims because they have a mandate to kill apostates" approach, because it ignores so much of the reality. Not to mention, without diving into old/new testament theology, that there are plenty of commands to kill in the bible, even of unbeleivers…

christians have killed many more muslims than muslims have killed christians

Undoubtedly, but important questions about the ethics of war aren't usually based upon the body count. They're based upon initiation of force, hostility, ability to negotiate peace, treatment of captives, willingness to adhere to treaties, etc.

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

#182

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:37 PM UTC

DamnYuppie wrote: post #136

megalodon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World's largest arms exporter: US ($10,194,000,000 in 2014) World's largest arms importer: Saudi Arabia ($4,243,000,000 in 2014) To me, these are scary numbers. > When a country decides to invest in arms, rather than in education, housing, the environment, and health services for its people, it is depriving a whole generation of its right to prosperity and happiness. We have produced one firearm for every ten inhabit…

It appears, from what I could find, that Saudia Arabia's yearly spending on education is $57.9B, they spend $42.7B on health, with a total spending of $229.3. So they spend 25% of their budget on education and less then 2% on arms importation. Yes they could spend that money on something else, but please don't make it seem like they are neglecting healthcare or educational spending for arms. http://www.us-sabc.org/cu…

[deleted]

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

#183

Post by peeky » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #146

drinchev wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 affec…

What makes you decide some bible rules are good and others less good? Same answer, probably.

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

#184

Post by avar » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #146

drinchev wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 affec…

    > As a counter-point let me ask a non-religious person,
    > what makes an act good?

You might be interested in reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris for an in-depth start at an answer to that question.

It's a secular look at morality and how we can reason about morality without a foundation of unscientific ideas (e.g. the existence of a deity).

In essence it makes the point that the religious idea of morality driven by a god with a big stick in the sky who'll discipline you if you step out of line isn't moral at all, and neither do most religious people actually adhere to it in practice.

E.g. we're not stoning homosexuals or burning witches as we once were, and it's not because the scripture changed, but because of secular progress despite of scripture. How do you decide which instructions to cherry-pick from the Bible or whatever piece of scripture it is you believe in?

He essentially defines an act as "good" if it's a net increase in human happiness and well-being. Burning people to death of persecuting homosexuals, not so much. Looking out for your fellow man so he'll look out for you. Note that this isn't the same thing as reducing morality to hedonism.

Anyway, I'm doing a poor job of paraphrasing the gist of that book so I'll stop. But if you're genuinely interested in what constitutes a good act or moral behavior in the secular sense there's a lot of well-researched and interesting works you can read on the subject.

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

#185

Post by utku_karatas2 » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #154

utku_karatas2 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

The Islamic State are different from AQ in that they have territorial ambitions, the clue is in the name. Their PR success is buoyed by their successes. France has the expeditionary capability to assist in driving the IS out of the territory it currently occupies. If France doesn't care about who takes control of the territory afterwards, as long as they aren't terrorist supporting Islamists then it does have the cap…

I am afraid the answer to all of those questions is NOPE. ISIS did grow and will continue to grow as long as there is foreign military existence on Middle-east soil. It is extremely easy to recruit people to do anything while their national/religious pride is being pissed on by their historical enemy.

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

#186

Post by AndyKelley » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #167

AndyKelley wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandparent makes a clear argument: The Qur'an is fundamentally evil. Islam is based on the Qur'an. Islam is therefore not a peaceful religion, but is a fundamentally evil religion. I'm glad that most people practicing the religion have the decency to do whatever mental gymnastics they have to do in order to simultaneously believe that the Qur'an is the source of their morality and that killing non-Islams is immoral.…

And therein lies the rub no? If we concentrate on the words in a book that will never disappear how do you propose we get out of this mess? And if Christianity could - to some extent - overcome the limitations of the bible how can we assist Islam? Surely not by attempting to polarize.

Why not? How about we fork the Qur'an like it were source code, delete the parts about killing people for their beliefs, add in some more commandments such as "don't rape, don't discriminate, be nice to everybody. It's ok if you don't literally believe that Allah exists." etc etc.

Then we can rename it to Islam2 or Progressive Islam, or something like that. Everybody wins.

I'm pretty sure that's already been done with Christianity, and it's called Unitarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism#Other_beliefs

I think Unitarianism is a step in the right direction.

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

#187

Post by ocean3 » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #59

slowmotiony wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The roots of this mess are political: France wanted Assad ousted at every cost, a policy that suited the US too since Assad was in business with Russia. That's why the ISIS was allowed to grow and receive funding . I know shocking isn't it? Now that France knows that the ISIS, retards as they are, are not easy to control. France will have to decide: Either you leave Syria to the Russians or you leave the ISIS be and…

Why are France interested in ousting Assad?

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

#188

Post by xenonite » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

megalodon wrote: post #111

cygx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

World's largest arms exporter: US ($10,194,000,000 in 2014) World's largest arms importer: Saudi Arabia ($4,243,000,000 in 2014) To me, these are scary numbers. > When a country decides to invest in arms, rather than in education, housing, the environment, and health services for its people, it is depriving a whole generation of its right to prosperity and happiness. We have produced one firearm for every ten inhabit…

So, Germany sells arms for about 1100 million euros. Among this amount are western countries, China, India.

Germany will spend at least 8000 million euros for refugees this year (2014 it were about 2400 million euros).

If there is any relation between exporting arms and the number of refugees, this is not only a humanitarian, but clearly a financial disaster.

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

#189

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

megalodon wrote: post #111

cygx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

World's largest arms exporter: US ($10,194,000,000 in 2014) World's largest arms importer: Saudi Arabia ($4,243,000,000 in 2014) To me, these are scary numbers. > When a country decides to invest in arms, rather than in education, housing, the environment, and health services for its people, it is depriving a whole generation of its right to prosperity and happiness. We have produced one firearm for every ten inhabit…

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by jdright » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #146

drinchev wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 affec…

Will give my take at it. There is no thing as "a good act" or "a bad act" because these are absolutes. What I _believe_ true is "to act good/bad to". Because they are relative to the recipient(s)[anything sentient/alive/other term] of the act to say so. So as a baseline rule, considering myself a "good" person, I try to follow the known (and even religious) saying of: treat others the same way you want them to treat you.