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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

#351

Post by cmdkeen »

nickik wrote: post #313
cmdkeen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 I have never understood, is how can you not take the Bible literally and just kind of pick and choice what part to belive or not to believe. How is this process of picking and choiceing from the Bible and 2000 years of Christian history not the same as making up your own morality (as most secularist do). Seems to me, that the only thing 'being Christian' is (outside of the institution), is that you take some mor…

The idea of believing that every word of the bible is literally true is a very modern concept. The need for interpretation, for understanding of the changing meaning of words and practices, has been accepted since the early church fathers. It's not supposed to be easy - this is the crux of faith. If it were indisputably and provably true than you would not be capable of free will. Jesus rebuked Thomas for failing to believe even when presented with him being resurrected, pointing out that most will not have anything close to that level of truth.

There are different fundamental truths that you need to accept to "be Christian", it's been discussed for centuries - probably the most accepted would be the Nicene Creed.

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

#352

Post by tome »

scrollaway wrote: post #324
tome wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of moral equivocation can only come if you really have no clue about the reality of these conflicts, in my opinion. It's one of the great weaknesses of our civilisation that we are "too broad-minded to take own own side in a quarrel" (to quote a phrase I just learned today). In the large, one side wants to impose rule based on beliefs about what an omnipotent sky person wants and is willing to sacrifice inn…

God has little to do with political plays. Not all muslim extremist are believers, just like not all the american politicians who say they're christians are actually christians[0]. More often than not, it's a facade from the leaders to draw in more pawn soldiers who believe in the cause. You talk a lot about not having a clue on "the reality of the conflicts" and yet, you are unable to take a step back and look from…

Regarding "God", certainly a lot of terrorising has happened at the hands of secular Middle Eastern entities, from Ghaddafi to Saddam to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Bridages. My "in the large" sweeps a lot under the carpet!

We're hardly going to be able to tease this one out over a Hacker News thread.

EDIT: Sorry for making this personal. Some details removed.

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

#353

Post by pgeorgi »

ptaipale wrote: post #285
claudius wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Underground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest_terror_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army All these are fairly recent examples of non-Muslim radicals attempting to effect social change by the same means Muslim radicals use to try and effect s…

You really have to go back in time to find these examples. Their dates of terror operation are 1970's, 1980, 1980's, 1995 and for one which doesn't very well compare, 2010. And then they were largely hounded down and imprisoned (or executed, for McVeigh). Islamist terrorism is a newer and also much bigger trend (even in the West, although the vast majority of people killed are in Muslim countries). I see this line of…

"the 1980s" (picking 1986 since it's the mid-decade) are about as close in time to 9/11 (2001) than 9/11 is to us. Next year that's equidistant.

At which point does 9/11 not matter anymore?

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

#354

Post by DanBC »

crusso wrote: post #334
DanBC wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US citizens are at greater risk of harm from police officers (who kill about 1,000 people per year) than from Islamist terrorists. US citizens are at greater risk of far right or Christian extremists than they are of Islamist extremists - see the numbers of people injured and killed by various mass shooters or clinic bombings.

US citizens are at greater risk of harm from police officers How is that a fair or even interesting comparison, though? Islamist terrorists aren't killing people ostensibly engaged in criminal acts. Islamist terrorists aren't otherwise expected to be agents of the government charged with using physical force to protect the laws. Islamist terrorists target innocents in a deliberate effort to maximize damage and loss o…

> Islamist terrorists aren't killing people ostensibly engaged in criminal acts.

True disturbingly often for police officers. About half the people shot and killed by police in the US (about 500 people per year) have mental illness. Compare that rate with the rest of the western world (less than 100 people since 2000) where people with mental illness tend not to be murdered by police. Even if we remove all the mentally ill people with guns from those numbers (to make the weapon use comparable across countries) we see very many more people killed in the US than any other western nation.

And if you want numbers for innocent people shot by officers with poor aim, well, they don't keep numbers so you can't get accurate stats. Here are a few: https://popehat.com/2013/12/05/nypd-baby-you-know-we-love-yo...

> So sure, Christian terrorists' kill numbers might be comparable or even greater than Islamic terrorists domestically (if you unfairly exclude 9/11)

I'm not excluding 9/11. Christian and right wing extremists have killed more than 3,000 people in the US in the 19th and 20th century. At least 3,500 black people were lynched, for example. We've seen in this thread people claiming that Islam has centuries of violence, so let's go back 200 years and see who's being killed and who's doing the killing. Black folks are being killed, and Good White Christians were doing the killing.

> They're not looking to take down all of Western society.

Sure they are. "NEW WORLD ORDER" and "THE JEWS DID IT" and "FREEMEN ON THE LAND" are all about how corrupt the current system is. Read the Unabomber manifesto. That's all about overthrowing the system.

> They aren't amassing armies in other countries to assert 6th century law on all the territories that they conquer.

There's no point having this discussion if you're just going to shift the goal posts to keep redefining what terrorism is or what extremism is or what atrocities do or don't count.

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

#355

Post by scrollaway »

tome wrote: post #352
scrollaway wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God has little to do with political plays. Not all muslim extremist are believers, just like not all the american politicians who say they're christians are actually christians[0]. More often than not, it's a facade from the leaders to draw in more pawn soldiers who believe in the cause. You talk a lot about not having a clue on "the reality of the conflicts" and yet, you are unable to take a step back and look from…

Regarding "God", certainly a lot of terrorising has happened at the hands of secular Middle Eastern entities, from Ghaddafi to Saddam to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Bridages. My "in the large" sweeps a lot under the carpet! We're hardly going to be able to tease this one out over a Hacker News thread. EDIT: Sorry for making this personal. Some details removed.

> I was just surprised to see someone I esteem so highly as jacquesm expousing what is, to my mind, such an ill-informed opinion

Embrace the occasion to reconsider whether it's actually ill-informed, then. :)

To clarify what I was saying before, I don't mean to say that "God" hasn't been the main driver for wars and terror before. My point is that it's usually just an excuse, so that more may join the cause.

If you want to wage war on Madeupistan and 95% of your country is hardcore vegetarian, it's easier to get followers if you tell your people you're spreading vegetarianism than if you tell them you want their unobtainium mines.

> We're hardly going to be able to tease this one out over a Hacker News thread.

Wanna try twitter? #140characters

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

#356

Post by seren »

cmdkeen wrote: post #339
utku_karatas2 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IS grew out of the vacuum of a civil war in Syria and is predicated on creating a Caliphate. They cannot physically grow if they are not able to gain ground. Their recruitment message is likely to be significantly weakened if they lose territory and battles. Unlike AQ or even the Taliban of recent years they are not able to avoid pitched battles, they can't melt into the background - they would have to stand and figh…

They can definitely hide in the population. Rakka still have 200,000 people living there. I have no idea which part of that population are hardcore isis member : 40-50k maximum maybe. Assuming you could take Rakka, you can't just execute or deport every one with a weird accent. Mosul is even bigger.

How many ground troop would it take to occupy all these cities ? This would be a repeat of the second Irak war, or Afghanistan, with the endless terrorist attacks, IEDs, etc.

Even if you have contributions from Kurds, Irak regular army, or Hezbollah, they would not be welcome as savior in Sunni's territory.

Like in most conflict, the military option can be used to create conditions for a political resolution, but you have to provide some sort of long term plan for Sunni population : you can't just tell them they will go back under Assad rule they despise in the first place. Currently, I don't believe there is a clear political solution. In this condition, the military option is doomed to fail.

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

#358

Post by tome »

scrollaway wrote: post #355
tome wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding "God", certainly a lot of terrorising has happened at the hands of secular Middle Eastern entities, from Ghaddafi to Saddam to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Bridages. My "in the large" sweeps a lot under the carpet! We're hardly going to be able to tease this one out over a Hacker News thread. EDIT: Sorry for making this personal. Some details removed.

> I was just surprised to see someone I esteem so highly as jacquesm expousing what is, to my mind, such an ill-informed opinion Embrace the occasion to reconsider whether it's actually ill-informed, then. :) To clarify what I was saying before, I don't mean to say that "God" hasn't been the main driver for wars and terror before. My point is that it's usually just an excuse , so that more may join the cause. If you…

EDIT: Deleted because it was inappropriate to make this personal.

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

#359

Post by lmm »

Natanael_L wrote: post #281
venomsnake wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion is more than just beliefs and speech. It is also religious organizations, religious rituals and so on. The first part I support - no one should be prevented (or punished) for saying - I believe in X. On the other hand there should be total override of secular laws towards the commandments - if your country orders you (or forbids you from doing) something that contradicts with your beliefs - you do it, and so…

> if your country orders you (or forbids you from doing) something that contradicts with your beliefs - you do it, and sort it out with your deity later. Independently of religion, this is horrible policy. Not every country has rational sane laws, not every goverment wants their populace to be free. If you'd be given the option in Hitler's Germany to join the army or die, would you comply or try to fight? The rationa…

You're being disingenuous. venomsnake's point was that a nation should treat religiously-motivated violations of its laws the same way as any other violations of those laws (and not provide legal exceptions on religious grounds). When an individual should consider it worthwhile to break the laws of their country is an orthogonal concern.

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

#360

Post by coldtea »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #328
coldtea wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no 40% group of the population in Europe that holds views that are anywhere near as disgusting as that. Well, only 50+ years ago there was an over 40% population in the US that thought that blacks were inferior and shouldn't sit in the same restaurants/hotels/schools with whites. In fact it was even law in some states. Beyond that, there were about all major western countries, France, UK, Belgium, Holland,…

>There have been over 2 million victims of those interventions in the last 10 years alone I was comparing social attitudes not counting casualties of armed conflict and its repercussions. Comparing these two things quantitatively makes very little sense. The conservative advocates of Sharia who execute people for their sexual orientation are executing people who live right now in those countries. They don't execute E…

>The conservative advocates of Sharia who execute people for their sexual orientation are executing people who live right now in those countries

Yes. So other countries should not encourage the tolerant co-patriots of those fanatics to adopt their attitudes -- e.g. by showing a plundering, hypocritical and hateful face of western democracies that destabilize the region, arm dangerous fanatics like ISIS and Laden, meddle in their politics, pillage their resources, and while condemning backwards islamism at the same time hi-five equally backwards Saudi regimes.

Because that's what has been happening. All of these countries were much more tolerant and humane 30 and even 50 years ago.

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