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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

#621

Post by conanbatt »

pionar wrote: post #170
conanbatt wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cat…

Fellow agnostic here, with religious friends and family. I've asked my dad this before (Catholic), and his response was (paraphrasing): Of course those stories are parables. There wasn't really a literal burning bush. But, whether the supernatural stuff is real, that's what faith is. Faith means that even when you can't see it, you know it's there because you can feel it. So you trust that what's there is what you th…

I think the "smart" layman would take it as parable. But do priests?.

If you asked Pope Francis if angels are real, what would he answer?

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

#622

Post by paki123 »

akamel wrote: post #546
paki123 wrote: post #494

I think it's important to remember that a lot of muslims are just as "ignorant" of their own text, as many Christians and Jews are. For example, music is strictly forbidden in Islam, except for the beat of a drum. Modern Christians and Jews often fall back on the excuse of interpreting their books as metaphors as opposed to the literal word of god. It's a great cop out. Islam isn't compatible with an open society, bu…

> For example, music is strictly forbidden in Islam, except for the beat of a drum. o.0 and that's in the Quran where? You talk with such certainty; seems to me _you_ are also very 'ignorant' of the Islamic Text

http://islamqa.info/en/5000

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

#623

Post by will_brown »

baddox wrote: post #604
will_brown wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how does that in any way excuse or lessen any atrocities it commits? Rule of law does not excuse or lessen atrocities, it defines them. Moreover, the laws of war are specifically designed to lessen/avoid atrocities by limiting: 1. When a nation-state may engage in the use of armed force, and 2. How a nation-state may actually use armed force. Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is sp…

> Rule of law does not excuse or lessen atrocities, it defines them. Are you saying that codified law is the only thing that determines what is and isn't an atrocity? As in, anything that's legal isn't an atrocity? I certainly do not agree with that. > Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian…

>Of course, but why is that relevant? The existence of a worse actor does not make the acts of another actor more excusable.

It matters here because my top level comment was a reply to someone emphatically stating there is no difference between the actions of the US and IS and I disagree. I believe there is a difference in the actions of US and IS, I used the law to distinguish between two acts. If someone said there was not a difference between the act of 1st degree murder and manslaughter, I would disagree and turn to the law to give examples of the differences.

>That's not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is the notion that a formal law in any way determines the acceptability of a violent act.

No doubt, to many laws of war is an oxymoron. However, the laws don't determine what the acceptable violent acts are, instead humankind determines what is not acceptable based on International consensus and through the treaty/UN we codify it into law.

One example, humans decided land mines as a weapon of war were to indiscriminate and had potential to far outlast armed conflicts and were outlawed by treaty and then codified into a UN Resolution, every year since then annual deaths of landmines has decreased from ~10k/year down to ~3.5k/year. Moreover, often times these laws of war have nothing to do with violence, but make sense such as requiring all military actors in armed conflict to be identified by uniform so as to be distinguished from civilians. Other laws such as Arms Reduction Treaty lead to Russia/US disposing of some combined 50-60k nukes.

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

#624

Post by DanBC »

will_brown wrote: post #623
baddox wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rule of law does not excuse or lessen atrocities, it defines them. Are you saying that codified law is the only thing that determines what is and isn't an atrocity? As in, anything that's legal isn't an atrocity? I certainly do not agree with that. > Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian…

>Of course, but why is that relevant? The existence of a worse actor does not make the acts of another actor more excusable. It matters here because my top level comment was a reply to someone emphatically stating there is no difference between the actions of the US and IS and I disagree. I believe there is a difference in the actions of US and IS, I used the law to distinguish between two acts. If someone said there…

And yet we see the US continuing to use cluster bombs, or carpet bombing on civilian populations, or targeted extra-judicial murders of unarmed combatants. These war crimes could be prosecuted but the US declines to be part of that process.

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

#625

Post by toyg »

ufmace wrote: post #606
Ygg2 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Just like killing Saddam and Gadafi stabilized the region. I'm sure nothing bad would happen. It's not like something worse than Al Quaida can happen again. Europe fully deserves the migrant crisis. It went into Middle East guns blazing, and expects to come out of it unscathed.

If done at the right time, it would have at least had a chance of transitioning to a somewhat more democratic form of government. As opposed to what actually happened when we did nothing, which is Islamic extremists being the main supporters of the resistance, versus the Russian and Iranian backed Assad. Assad believes that the West will grudgingly back him against ISIS extremists, and not so much against secular reb…

> when we did nothing

"We" didn't do "nothing". Countries like France, Israel, US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia spent years destabilising Assad and funding those "opposition groups" that eventually started the civil war. Syria originally was a USSR satellite with ambitions of regional hegemony (they basically ruled Lebanon and deeply influenced Jordan), so they had to be beaten into submission. However, there was never a real plan to get involved on the ground, that was just a huge bluff; Assad and Putin saw right through it. "We" (and French elites above all) did way too much already, and it's high time we stopped.

> The fingers of Islamist and totalitarian interference are already all over this conflict

That's really rich. "Our" best ally in the region is an absolutist monarchy running an Islamist totalitarian regime, the US just sold them a new crapload of weapons... nobody gives a shit about that stuff. What "we" care about is that the "right" totalitarian mofo is in charge, like in Egypt. Everything else is theatre and propaganda.

The real solution is less weapons and more diplomacy. Get the interested parties in a room and throw away the key until they come up with a shared plan. The US/Russia agreement is a first step in that direction, next it's for Saudi, Turkey and Iran to work out an agreeable compromise and pull their weight in the right direction. Otherwise, until countries like Turkey and Saudi keep buying IS oil and selling them weapons, you can invade a thousand times and achieve nothing except increasing shareholder value in the defence sector.

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

#626

Post by utku_karatas2 »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #484
utku_karatas2 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We're discussing international politics on HN. Gotta take it easy. Beside that, in the face of the morbid reality and impending doom in Middle-east one has the need to laugh some times.

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

#627

Post by jordanpg »

ue_ wrote: post #617
jordanpg wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Litmus test: does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Buddhism? Yes. Silly, ridiculous relic. Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc. Are there helpful aspects to Buddhist beliefs? Maybe. But it's still Bronze Age philosophy with plenty of supernatural claptrap mixed in. I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddh…

>does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Not everyone views the world from an empiricist or materialist atheistic viewpoint. I don't think it's nice to say something is ridiculous simply because you don't see it that way. Further, many followers of religion wouldn't say it's supernatural at all - it's part of nature that hasn't been uncovered, or it can't be uncovered. >Please don't bore u…

I don't really care if anyone's feelings get hurt by me pointing out that something is very obviously false. Only religion gets that kind of treatment.

Moreover, I think that the fact that grownups can talk about supernatural religious claims as if they are reasonable and true things about the world is one of the root causes of what happened in Paris.

As for Buddhism, yes, I agree it has less supernatural nonsense than some of the other major belief systems. And the supernatural aspects are sort of optional.

But you've admitted (and I know full well) that there is a great deal of supernatural nonsense tied up with it, for most real-world practitioners. So, I dismiss it out of hand. Just like Mormonism, Scientology, Santa Claus, and the virgin birth.

If there are useful aspects to it, let's tag them with secular labels and move on with our modern lives. Shrouding it in important-sounding, mystical East Asian language and symbols is just silly. Like people who have "katanas" hanging over their mantles.

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

#628

Post by discreteevent »

drumdance wrote: post #600
gotchange wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISIS kidnapped 4 French journalists long before any foreign intervention by the French authorities in Iraq or Syria but were freed after 10 months held in captivity reinforcing my argument that them who started it not the other way around [0] [0] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/kidnapped-frenc...

The French retaliated to a kidnapping with a bombing. I'm not saying the kidnapping was legitimate, but it reinforces the point that ISIS does not do the really grisly stuff unless they are attacked.

Did the Yazidis attack them? Do you know what they did to the Yazidis?

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

#629

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#630

Post by knodi123 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #556
knodi123 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I stand by my position that the existence of interpretations that said the bible is a history book and the events in it occurred as depicted, is not relatively new. If you use the term "literalism" in an academic sense that means something subtly different, then fine. The fact remains that creationism is definitely not even remotely new.
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