Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

mailman.videolan.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 737 posts

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

#551

Post by agumonkey »

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…

Slightly similar, I bonded musically with people coming from totally different genre. But we shared an approach and a feeling toward music that made us share a lot.

It's not uncommon after a number of phases, you start to relate on other planes of abstractions and not on first level constructs.

If I may, I've also felt this religiousness coming up pretty much everywhere. Even if it doesn't impact us as much, architectures, languages (pure vs impure;), project practices, all of them are subject to cause emotional splits between people. We have to accept and live in peace with how people feel about anything as long as they do the same. Although balance is fragile.

I wish more people reached that conclusion about thinking across groups and see what's beneath the surface of each person and community.

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

#552

Post by knodi123 »

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…

> Creationism and biblical literalism are relatively recent "innovations" in some Christian traditions.

This isn't really true. You're right that metaphorical interpretations are very old, but so are literal ones. The catholic church, who pioneered some great non-literalist interpretations, also used to excommunicate you if you didn't believe all of humanity shared a single male ancestor named Adam.

Pick a random medieval christian peasant, and ask him whether the Ark was a real boat, and let's place wagers on what his answer will be.

The genesis stories were literal before they were metaphorical, and opinions about the relative percentages of fact to metaphor have shifted wildly based on century, region, and denomination.

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

#553

Post by redial »

Cyph0n wrote: post #517
redial wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other mammals as in the ones who use religious texts to get 'power' in the real world. Politicians, military leaders, jihadists, and sadly even teachers and parents. And was the Quran not a revelation from 'God' only to Muhammad? If he wants to believe it, fine, why should anybody else? Oh yes, eternal torture. It is childish to be told a story and believe it true only because they threaten you.

Oh yes, I agree. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world where not all followers of a religion follow its true message. You might say "well OK, so get rid of religion". People will still seek power, but in other ways. In other words, there are people who always seek the easiest way to gain more power and influence. Yes, the Quran was revealed directly to Muhammad. He told his wife first, and she believed him. It…

No, it doesn't make any difference at all.

The apparent beauty of the text says nothing about the truth of the text. Otherwise the King James Bible, considered by most English scholars to be one of the most, if not the most beautiful work of english literature would be entirely true.

I have no opinion on the honesty of Muhammad, it is irrelevant. He might have heard voices, or seen angels and visions on his head that were so real to him as the voice and sight of his own wife. His honesty makes no difference on the truth. Otherwise the visions and revelations of the most honest and righteous Buddhist monks would all be true.

The rate at which an idea spreads has no connection with the truth of the idea. Otherwise Christianity, Mormonism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Scientology would all be true.

The truth must stand on its own, in any language, spoken by any or no man. If an idea requires fear and intimidation to make itself true, then it needs no further examination.

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

#554

Post by knodi123 »

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…

> 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).

"Doctor, I understand the point of the rorshach test, in theory- but this inkblot clearly depicts my mother having sex with the postman. It's completely unambiguous."

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

#555

Post by ibejoeb »

brohee wrote: post #104
thaway9837 wrote: post #71

With all the respect for his contributions and good demeanor, sadly, this guy has no clue on what islam is and playin moslem like most of the 1.5 billion so called moslems. Which causes islam to be seen as a peaceful religion. No. Islam is the thing that creates these lunatics. I'm from Turkey, and I've been surrounded with islam for all my life. Problem with this kind of people is: they have created their own religi…

You can find pretty horrific stuff in the Bible too (I don't have time to look for much more but http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/22-21.htm is a good example). http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ is a good tool to go to the juicy parts quickly. Both the Qoran and the Bible (and some other sacred books) are full of stuff that is horrific, yet discarded as obviously outdated by 99.9999% of their practitionners. In my boo…

> discarded as obviously outdated by 99.9999% of their practitionners

This is plainly not the case, as we are witnessing the formation and rapid growth of Isamic State.

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

#556

Post by dragonwriter »

knodi123 wrote: post #552
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…

> Creationism and biblical literalism are relatively recent "innovations" in some Christian traditions. This isn't really true. You're right that metaphorical interpretations are very old, but so are literal ones . The catholic church, who pioneered some great non-literalist interpretations, also used to excommunicate you if you didn't believe all of humanity shared a single male ancestor named Adam. Pick a random me…

> > Creationism and biblical literalism are relatively recent "innovations" in some Christian traditions.

> This isn't really true. You're right that metaphorical interpretations are very old, but so are literal ones.

The existence of some literal interpretations is not literalism. Literalism is the doctrine which excludes any metaphorical interpretations, and it is, in fact, relatively new (and mostly isolated to a subset of Protestantism, not general to Christianity.)

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

#557

Post by tmalsburg2 »

return0 wrote: post #246
0xFFC wrote: 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…

The middle east is politically undeveloped and unstable so wars would be inevitable, with or without western involvement. It is unfortunate, but "great powers" were involved in the nation building of many many different countries. They seem to fail in middle east - so far. But that doesn't mean that it would all be peaceful of the westerners stopped being involved. The problem is, as your comment shows, the idea of a…

The idea that the west set out to bring stability to the middle east is heart-warming but the accumulated evidence seems to suggest the exact opposite. To a neutral observer, the evidence rather suggests that the west is actively trying to destabilize the region. Consistent with that narrative, one of the most stable countries (Iran) makes the US most uncomfortable. However, even if we take a more charitable view of the west's intentions, we'd have to conclude that the west's agenda is based on the fundamentally flawed assumption that the middle east lingers in a pre-modern state that is bound to be eventually replaced by western-style modernity.

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

#558

Post by wordbank »

smokeyj wrote: post #548
wordbank wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. Why generalize? How about the core parts of Buddhism that are literally a checklist on how to calm your mind. And the same methods are used by modern psychotherapy as "cognitive behavioural therapy" and "mindfulness".

It's like tradition. You don't say it's tradition to eat dinner - because there's a clear and logical reason why. Meditation has empirical benefits. Meditation is good. If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion. So I'd argue, keep the logic, drop the religion.

> If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion.

Buddhist "hell" is purely logical, there're no concepts in vanilla Buddhism that are not logical. You're not getting to hell for "not meditating".

The hell is not eternal and you will go out of it eventually when you'll get better understanding of the universe. You're going to hell not because some god or Buddha say so but because the universe works that way: angry and violent mindstreams flow into worse states until they realize they should stop behave like they do.

For people who're opposite to the idea of any other worlds but their own, there's a view that "hell" is just a state of unbalanced mind and not some kind of dimension for your afterlife.

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

#559

Post by noobermin »

xorcist wrote: post #491
noobermin wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Breivik was an individual, while ISIS is a movement.

Breivik was most certainly part of a movement. They have web forums and everything.

I am aware of the "white power" movement that exists online, some are just trolls but some are serious, and there is always this moment in which it feels the jokes are a little too sincere...I say this as a non-white male. Moreover, beyond stormfront and trolls, there do indeed exist political, nationalist parties and groups.

Nonetheless, Breivik, unless I'm wrong about it, was not part of a movement trying to dominate the world and install a Christian kingdom, so ISIS differs from the white "movement" in that regard.

In regards to the current discussion, I am not sure which side of the argument I am on. I am not a Muslim so I can only comment from what I see from the outside. I have Muslim friends who are not at all sympathetic to ISIS or any of its friends, so I don't find it hard to believe that most Muslims find ISIS reprehensible as most Christians found Breivik. However, I have the opinion that nations in the region need to step up because ISIS threatens their freedom. There needs desperately to be a fight against ISIS in the form of a fight against their ideology... a movement that teaches that hatred and intolerance is not the way of Islam. I am not a Muslim, so I have no right to demand that of my Muslim brothers and sisters, especially as they've endured much in terms of discrimination in France (as that fascinating New Yorker pointed out) and elsewhere, but the ideology of hatred will survive bombs and invasions, if not be inflamed by it. The only way we can defeat ISIS is to defeat their message.

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

#560

Post by Cyph0n »

terrn wrote: post #547
Cyph0n wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, I agree. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world where not all followers of a religion follow its true message. You might say "well OK, so get rid of religion". People will still seek power, but in other ways. In other words, there are people who always seek the easiest way to gain more power and influence. Yes, the Quran was revealed directly to Muhammad. He told his wife first, and she believed him. It…

Sigh...there are a lot of problems with your statement. The first is that you are reciting anecdotes from 1400 years ago; there is absolutely no proof of anything you said. Even if we accept that the Quran was given to Mohammed by God, we have to at least acknowledge the possibility that a lot of what you've learned has been added in by various persons over the course of many hundreds of years i.e. we cannot be so su…

No, there is proof that that's how it started. These "anecdotes" were passed down by narration initially, then they were recorded by two scholars: Al Bukhari and Muslim. The methods they used for verification were amazing, which is why we believe most of what they deemed valid. If you'd like to know more about how they did this, I can elaborate.

As for the Quran, it has been passed down by rote memorization. This is the difference between it and other books: people memorized it AND wrote it down. No other book in history has been memorized by so many people at once. Even now the record stands. Of course, the Quran could be falsely memorized in a localized instance, but not in all places at once. Many attempts were made to falsify the Quran systematically, but they failed due to the sheer number of people who had it committed to memory.

I simply don't agree with your opinion on belief.

Post reply on HN