Attack on UN staff, Afghan

[Guard Dog]

I agree wholeheartedly with Grom (nothing unusual there) Volo (happens from time to time) and Oblarg (now there's a first). Lets call these "people" what they really are: a mob of ignorant flybitten savages who will take any pretext to lash out, brutalize and kill in the most barbaric fashion anyone who is not like them. Granted making a public spectacle of burning the Koran is stupid but he is free to do whatever the hell he wishes. Assigning one iota of blame to the nobody in Florida DOES mean you are at least partially legitimizing the actions of the barbarians, and you know Wals, it's not like they don't do this sort of thing all the time. Your example of calling a mans wife ugly does not work here because the pastor did not burn their Korans and he did not do it in front of them.

 

I'm a Christian and you could light a stack bibles two meters high and cook hot dogs over the blaze and I would not care unless 1) one of them was mine or 2) you did not share the hot dogs with me. It's just a book. It's not hard to go get another one. Religion is not found between the covers of a book. It's not assigned to any physical object, it's in your heart. Nothing can burn or steal that. When religion becomes a thing of objects it's called idolatry which I believe is punishable by death is Islam. But then again so is everything else.

[Volourn]

"If I call a man's wife ugly, even if she is, knowing it will make him angry, then there is some blame at my door. "

 

This doesn't make sense on so many levels largely covered by Grom's post. These savages didn't even attack the perpetrator. They murdered random people.

 

I guess everytime someone is mean to me Obsidian Forums, I should go kill some random person in real life... and myd efence will be because you guys were mean to me. Does that make sense? Not at all.

 

And, no, someone calling your wife ugly doesn't give you the excuse to kill people or even get physical. That's silly talk.

 

There is no excuse whatsoever for what they did and the pastor (as much a s asilly goose he is)is not responsible at all for their actions.

[Bos_hybrid]

Maybe we should start a country where organized religion is not allowed? That has never been done before, right?

 

It won't die out completely, but "religion will be driven toward extinction" in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say.

 

It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate.

 

religion to go extinct in 9 countries experts predict

[Gromnir]

Maybe we should start a country where organized religion is not allowed? That has never been done before, right?

 

...

 

what do you teach? in any event, ask lof how well the soviet ideal of eliminating organized religion worked for them... am sure he can spin so is more interesting and wacky than the reality.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Volourn]

Religion will not become extinct in Kanada for a long time if ever. Do these punks even do proper reearch? LMAO That alone makes the article AUTO FAIL.

[Gromnir]

Maybe we should start a country where organized religion is not allowed? That has never been done before, right?

 

It won't die out completely, but "religion will be driven toward extinction" in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say.

 

It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate.

 

religion to go extinct in 9 countries experts predict

 

mathematicians is a funny bunch.

 

our cousin got married last june. it were her second marriage in 5 years. given her rate o' increased matrimony, mathematicians predict that by the year 2025 she will have been married 12 times.

 

*shrug*

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/...n.burn.take.cnn

 

we typical avoid video from cnn, but...

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorgon]

Islam you mean. Who can remember the last Christian lynch mob. That might not sound very diplomatic, but it's surely true.

BTW, _I_ 'remember' Christian lynch mobs:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

That's what I'm sayin'. 60 odd years ago.

Sabra and Chatila?

Kosovo/ Bosnia?

Jos?

Northern Ireland?

 

There've been plenty of times where christianity has been used as an excuse for murder as well.

Does any of that violence come out of interpretation of scripture, does anyone call for killing people in the name of god. Northern Ireland I suppose is a clear religious and sectarian divide, but was that what we were trying to find. No, and no. None of those examples compare well with Islamic extremism. You have to go back a while to find any, and that was my point.

Edited April 3, 2011 by Gorgon

[Calax]

Islam you mean. Who can remember the last Christian lynch mob. That might not sound very diplomatic, but it's surely true.

BTW, _I_ 'remember' Christian lynch mobs:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

That's what I'm sayin'. 60 odd years ago.

Sabra and Chatila?

Kosovo/ Bosnia?

Jos?

Northern Ireland?

 

There've been plenty of times where christianity has been used as an excuse for murder as well.

Does any of that violence come out of interpretation of scripture, does anyone call for killing people in the name of god. Northern Ireland I suppose is a clear religious and sectarian divide, but was that what we were trying to find. No, and no. None of those examples compare well with Islamic extremism. You have to go back a while to find any, and that was my point.

Mainly because in the scriptures, God does the slaughtering himself.

 

See Jericho, the great flood, the tale of Daniel being harassed and god having two huge bears come and kill his harassers...

 

I wonder if a Motel would get firebombed if they put Qua'ran's in their rooms instead of bibles? I also wonder how much money a motel would save by not doing the bible thing.

[Gromnir]

I also wonder how much money a motel would save by not doing the bible thing.

 

zip. zero. nadda.

 

do an internet search w/three words: gideon, bible, hotel.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

Most bibles are placed in Motels by a group called the Gideons. They don't cost the motel anything. I have a couple free Qu'ran's floating around my classroom, as well as a King James Bible.

[Purkake]

Maybe we should start a country where organized religion is not allowed? That has never been done before, right?

 

It won't die out completely, but "religion will be driven toward extinction" in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say.

 

It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate.

 

religion to go extinct in 9 countries experts predict

Estonia is less religious than any of these countries, great research there...

[Guard Dog]

I can just see it now, an entire nation with no religion is allowed. Then if the citizens do find someone practicing a religion they'll all gang up on that person and kill them. Soon they will be invading other countries forcing them to give up their religions too or be killed, yes because obviously religion is the problem here right?

[Hurlshort]

That's the problem I've had with a few of the responses here, these deaths are a product of extremism, not religion. While religion is a convenient avenue in which extremism can manifest, we've seen enough communist countries to know that stifling organized religion does very little against extremism.

 

What has worked best is establishing a co-existent relationship. In the US you can have a Catholic Church and a Lutheran Church on the same street, and it doesn't cause an international incident. That is because the gap between these denominations has been closed. That needs to happen between Islam and Christianity.

 

It will happen eventually. Then we will probably have bigger problems, like some alien race religion and a backwater hick who burns their Holy Book of Zooloo, and so they vaporize our moon.

[Calax]

True, it is mainly extremism, but part of the issue with Religion is that it happily promotes extremists. Well the highest rungs certainly don't but the language of the various holy books often contain very solid rules about what may or may not occur, which easily leads to an extremist using it to justify themselves

 

This isn't to say that they won't find other justifications but it would remove the easiest one. I mean, these are the guys who use the specific holy books to commit Intellectual Vandalism because they take things literally (see Kitzmiller V Dover)

[213374U]

we've seen enough communist countries to know that stifling organized religion does very little against extremism.

Um, but it does wonders against religious extremism. The reason why communist dictatorships ban religious practice is because they can't have religious ideas interfering with their ideological monopoly goals. Also, please stop suggesting a connection between a lack of organized religion and Bolshevik or Maoist atrocities. It's fallacious and annoying.

 

 

What has worked best is establishing a co-existent relationship. In the US you can have a Catholic Church and a Lutheran Church on the same street, and it doesn't cause an international incident. That is because the gap between these denominations has been closed. That needs to happen between Islam and Christianity.

No, I'll tell you what has worked best: diminishing their power and influence, and forcing them to acknowledge that they answer not only to God but also to civil magistrates. The very real threat of ending up in jail -or dead- if they attempt any stupid **** like burning down the competition's place is what keeps extremists of any cause in check.

[Oblarg]

The problem here is not religion itself, no - religion is fairly benign, as long as it is interpreted in a largely metaphorical sense that does not contradict observable fact.

 

The problem here is absurd fundamentalism, and it's abundantly clear that Islam has a disproportionately high number of fundamentalist nutcases relative to the other major religions. Sure, Christianity has its fair share of them - those still attempting to push creationism into science classes come to mind - but it's nowhere near the scale observed in Islam.

Edited April 3, 2011 by Oblarg

[Calax]

I think that the idea that there are more extremists in Islam than Christianity isn't really true. It's just that there are a few islamic nations that are under the control of the fanatical extremists, while the Christian extremists haven't really found a place for their works.

 

Also the Christian extremists take a longer view of things (instead of blowing stuff up, they try to brainwash people) and have a perfect mouthpiece with Fox News:

[Gorgon]

I think it's useful to regard religion as the whole range of practices within it. What to the books themselves mean to anyone without interpretation, not much.

The extremists obviously get more press, after all we are at war with them, but there are areas of the world where extremism is the norm.

[Gorth]

Maybe we should start a country where organized religion is not allowed? That has never been done before, right?

The Soviet Union...

[Gorth]

The problem here is not religion itself, no - religion is fairly benign, as long as it is interpreted in a largely metaphorical sense that does not contradict observable fact.

 

The problem here is absurd fundamentalism, and it's abundantly clear that Islam has a disproportionately high number of fundamentalist nutcases relative to the other major religions. Sure, Christianity has its fair share of them - those still attempting to push creationism into science classes come to mind - but it's nowhere near the scale observed in Islam.

As somebody mentioned previously, it really is about control. Religion doesn't make people frothing lunatics, odds are they already were and some clever charismatic demagogue types will come along and find a way to channel the pent up rage. Instead of having an anarchistic, randomly lashing out mob, you get a directed, controlled anger lashing out at "designated" enemies of the mob. People feel more comfortable with "shared values" and hating the same things.

 

If you want to solve the problem of fundamentalism and extremism, you first have to get to the bottom of the causes of peoples anger and do something about it first. Something a number of ex-leaders in North Africa realised too late. Some reasons are cultural, where medieval, tribal cultures feel their patriarchal (and often misogynistic) systems under threat by change, others are too many youths with too much spare time on their hands and probably dozens of other reasons.

[Hurlshort]

Also, please stop suggesting a connection between a lack of organized religion and Bolshevik or Maoist atrocities. It's fallacious and annoying.

 

That's a pretty big jump from my statement. My point is more along the lines that extremism will exist with or without organized religion.

 

I know a lot of folks like to play the enlightened card and look at religion as a silly and dated construct, but whatever your beliefs are, in the real world religion is huge and shouldn't be dismissed easily. It has been a part of every human society in recorded history.

 

In my opinion, the only real course of action that will have any long term effects on something as huge as Islam is to educate people, find common ground, and build bridges between communities.

 

Oh, and it is hard to imagine Jesus burning someone's holy book. Kinda seems like that guy missed the point of the New Testament.

[lord of flies]

Hey guys, just chiming in to make a point that no one seems to have: did you notice that these Afghanistanis attacked a compound owned by an occupying foreign power?

 

The idea that the UN is "neutral" or "civilian" in the War in Afghanistan is a blatant absurdity. The compound itself was a UNAMA Operations Center. According to UNAMA's own website, the most recent clarification of its mandate (resolute 1974) stated that "UNAMA ... would continue to lead international civilian support to the Afghan Government ... with a particular focus on strengthening coordination ... between civilian and military operations." Whoops!

[Oblarg]

Hey guys, just chiming in to make a point that no one seems to have: did you notice that these Afghanistanis attacked a compound owned by an occupying foreign power?

 

The idea that the UN is "neutral" or "civilian" in the War in Afghanistan is a blatant absurdity. The compound itself was a UNAMA Operations Center. According to UNAMA's own website, the most recent clarification of its mandate (resolute 1974) stated that "UNAMA ... would continue to lead international civilian support to the Afghan Government ... with a particular focus on strengthening coordination ... between civilian and military operations." Whoops!

 

Yes, but when those very afghanis are claiming the deaths were due to the burning of a quran, that should be irrelevant, right?

 

I'd probably feel more sympathy for them if they'd just come out and say "we're fed up with our country being ****ed over by foreign powers and decided to vent our anger."

[lord of flies]

Yes, but when those very afghanis are claiming the deaths were due to the burning of a quran, that should be irrelevant, right?

 

I'd probably feel more sympathy for them if they'd just come out and say "we're fed up with our country being ****ed over by foreign powers and decided to vent our anger."

*shrug*

 

Why did WW1 start? Why did the Tunisian revolution start?