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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

#481
post #302
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Significant numbers of non-Islam subscribers hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society too If that's your contention then you'd need to account for the high terrorist attack output of Islamists vs other non-Islam subscribers.

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.

The idiots of BLM will soon be praising ISIS, and confused lefties will agree.

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

#482
post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And notice that when the commenter says "open society," that really just means the type of society that he or she desires. It's phrased in such a way that it sounds like an objective uncontroversial description of a society that all "good" people desire, but alas such an objective description does not exist.

Maybe it's easier to define an open society in terms of what it isn't: it isn't a society in which women are second rate citizens, it isn't a society where religion forms the backbone of the state, it isn't a society where free speech in a practical sense is forbidden, it isn't a society where politics are so rotten that the basics of democracy are no longer present. So North Korea probably doesn't qualify as an open…

But note that some people desire attributes of society that they consider to qualify as "open society" that many other people who also claim to want an "open society" oppose. For instance, one might beliege that an open society would not have hate speech laws or copyright laws, and that anyone who supports such laws has "beliefs incompatible with an open society."

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

#483
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? That Islamic terrorism is compatible with open society because of a bunch of things were done to them over the past thousand years? Or is it that because Western society has had some bad actors/states, that we can never thereafter point to bad behaviors or systems of thought?

> What's your point? That Islamic terrorism is compatible with open society because of a bunch of things were done to them over the past thousand years? The question in the thread wasn't whether "islamic terrorism" was compatible with open society, but whether islam itself is. And my point it, whether it is or not, that "open society" is not as "open" as it pretends to be either. If some family had done "a bunch of t…

I'm muslim and I don't share your point on me being a victim. I think that the best thing we, muslim that want to live in peace, can do, to get over this terrorism problem and stop our child from joining those organisations, is stop spreading the feeling that we are victims of the western world and accept that part of what happen/is happening to us is our fault. We need to stand for our selves by having better leaders, work harder and manage our wealth efficiently. As long as corruption and greed are common practices in our countries and no one is standing to fight them (or at least very little) we deserve what is happening to us. Those people who join ISIS or al qaeda think they are the victims of the western world, but the reality is that they are the victims of them selves and could have made a difference if they fought for there rights in there countries instead of chasing a chimera and killing innocent people.

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

#484
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am pretty angry about what is going on in world , so if you felt insulted , I am so sorry , and You should understand I don't want to insult you or any other person specifically,But I want insult Ideologies pretty badly. As person who LIVES in heart of middle east (Iran) and I have seen shia militant from very close(I know people who works in IRGC),You are completely and pure wrong , do you know what would generate a…

> with a little being gay,I am not gay , but sometime things go wrong At first I thought this was a hilarious line to come out of the closet. Had to read again. :)

Of all the things that he said you chose to respond to that? I think you don't realize how serious things are for some people.

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

#485

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.

Well, not anymore, but Holy Inquisition did exactly that for centuries. Protestants burned witches. Buddhist, Jews or Hindus all did the same at some point. So it's not about some religions being good while others are evil, it's about narrow minded people gaining enough power at some point so that they can go with their crazy ideas unpunished. It's not a coincidence that all this started to happen with the collapse o…

Right, but if you're talking about immigration policy in 2015, only people alive in 2015 are really relevant.

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

#486

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…

what is atlantean? are you a subsect of protestant or catholic? i tried searching and couldn't come up with much results.

He used made up sect names to avoid offending anyone.

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

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some conservative Christians talking about how all gays need to be put to death I live in the deep south and have never heard such viewpoints from a Christian.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/opinion/campaign-stops/... Forgive me, I'm not from USA, is Iowa the deep south?

Not even close. It's firmly situated in the midwest, about 685 km from the nearest town in what I'd call the deep south (Fayetteville, AR).

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

#489

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…

what is atlantean? are you a subsect of protestant or catholic? i tried searching and couldn't come up with much results.

The "made up names cause I don't want to offend anyone this early in the morning" caveat includes the name Atlantean.

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

#490

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…

The best quote I heard about the refugees is "they're fleeing the same problems and people you're worried about". I really hope we can protect refugees better than we have been.

The problem with religion is that it isn't one thing. It's a general philosophy and creation myth to many, and to others it's day-to-day marching orders. That latter set is purely crazy - hearing voices, believing counterfactual things, and is often programmed to kill other groups or at least believe they need to die. If someone is a flat-earther in a battle with round-earthers you can take them up in an airplane high enough to see the curve of the Earth, or to space. But there's no counterproof that can be given to a religious killer.

I think the reason people tend to see Muslims as a single group is that both camps (not Sunni vs Shia, but Sane vs Crazy) share the same sets of religious leadership and respect the same historical figures. For example, a southern baptist and a russian orthodox member would have nothing (religiously) in common. If one sect started murdering others, or picking at a weak justification in the bible for slavery, the other sect would condemn them. But Muslims (through the seemingly accepted method of death-threats from priests) control their religious world more tightly. To be a member is to at least profess to, if not actually believe, a specific set of things.

There's no broad blanket condemnation for entire classes of horrible actions. The Saudis control Mecca and yet the "peaceful" muslims continue to travel there and enrich not only a kingdom but one that routinely executes people for rejecting minor religious traditions. It'd be like me saying I didn't support the Catholic molestation coverup and then going on a three-day Vatican tour and coming back with a pope hat.

So while it may be a stereotype, it is a deserved one (Ask Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali) and Muslims should pay the price of changing it instead of insisting others simply trust them despite their memberships and alliances.

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