Sri Lanka massacres

Soldato
Joined
30 Nov 2005
Posts
13,915
It's the same in every single ******* thread.

  1. We have a terror attack somewhere in the world.
  2. The usual apologists jump up and down saying "You can't blame Islam, no news has come through yet"
  3. News comes through
  4. The apologists then try to dig up past Christian attacks
  5. End up having to go far back as the crusades
  6. The thread becomes a Derpfest and the apologists do more and more crazy mental gymnastics as they post
  7. Thread is locked

We then have another terror attack and whole thing starts again, seeya guys i'm done and i've saved myself hours or reading and posting
:D LOL
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Nov 2005
Posts
12,444
To whoever I was discussing with the effectiveness of bombs in the New Zealand shooter thread, my point was proven here sadly that bombs do way more damage than any single shooter will ever do

290 dead, 500 wounded

Clearly we need to call upon Sri Lankan authorities to ban bombs
 
Soldato
Joined
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7,044
The only part I don't really know what he's referencing is the 138 million people. But heartfelt condolences and offering to help, isn't that what he's supposed to do? And what all other western nations have done?
Yeah everyone who criticizes him is perfect and would never make a typo. Obviously.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Apr 2007
Posts
6,590
It's the same in every single ******* thread.

  1. We have a terror attack somewhere in the world.
  2. The usual apologists jump up and down saying "You can't blame Islam, no news has come through yet"
  3. News comes through
  4. The apologists then try to dig up past Christian attacks
  5. End up having to go far back as the crusades
  6. The thread becomes a Derpfest and the apologists do more and more crazy mental gymnastics as they post
  7. Thread is locked

We then have another terror attack and whole thing starts again, seeya guys i'm done and i've saved myself hours or reading and posting

Yep.....

Edit: And also ignoring all atrocities Muslims commited during that time period themselves.....well everybody tbh.

BUT MUH CRUSADES!!!
 
Man of Honour
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[..]
Christianity emerged directly from Judaism, and has its roots in the Old Testament. Its adherents were persecuted and marginalised for several centuries, and it did not gain access to political power until the conversion of Constantine in AD 312. Until that time, it was little more than a mildly irritating cult that most people were happy to ignore.

I didn't say that it was immediately extremely successful. Also, the persecution of Christians was (a) rather less universal and extreme than later Christian propaganda makes it out to be and (b) to be expected when Christianity was working towards conquering the Roman empire and destroying its religion and at least some of its traditions.

That’s your opinion, one that I disagree with though.
Islam is not about absolute power and to think that is at best silly.

A single ideology that has complete control over law, government and education. An ideology that attaches literally superhuman authority to its authority figures. An ideology which requires repeated displays of compliance every single day. An ideology which requires self-identification as a follower of the ideology. An ideology that even goes so far as to require deprivation of good and water in obedience to the ideology. An ideology which elevated its creator from a minor figure to an emperor. An ideology which took less than 100 years to conquer more than half of the territory of its main competitor, came close to destroying it completely and has continued to try to do so for over 1300 years. An ideology which has the goal of global conquest.

What I wrote was specifically this:

[..] Islam was created specifically for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining absolute power by fear and violence (and was and is very successful at that). [..]

and this:

[..] There are plenty of Muslims who impose their own morality on their religion and are decent people, but that's in spite of their religion and not because of it. [..]

which is accurate and not at all silly.

Of course there are Muslims out there that will use Islam as a tool for power but normally it’s nothing to do with power rather living with each other peacefully. Which I will point out majority of Muslims do so with ease

And I will point out what I said before, again:

[..] There are plenty of Muslims who impose their own morality on their religion and are decent people, but that's in spite of their religion and not because of it. [..]

You can use a gun as a paperweight. But it's still a gun.

Also, of course, those Muslims have relatively little power because they don't seek it. So they're not very important in terms of the ideology itself and exist only when Islam doesn't have enough power.

Not going to get into a discussion about this either due to you being adamant about your opinion and me being of mine.

Fair enough.

Is religion inseparable from nationalism? I mean almost every time it seems to be about isolation from others or domination of others in pursuit of ethnostates.

I think religion and nationalism are not just seperable but fundamentally seperate despite very often being used together. I think that the association with nationalism is more a matter of political expedience for religion and nationalism than any inherent joining of the two. In isolation from others in pursuit of ethnostates the religion and the nation reinforce each other in defence, literally setting the border. In domination of others in pursuit of ethnostates, the religion and the nation reinforce each other in offence, seeking conquest. I think the distinction is more of matter of how much power the religion and nation have than anything else.

There are examples of religions seperate from nationalism, such as scientology today or christianity in its early years.

If religion is separable from it, this would surely be resolvable?

If it isn’t, it’s impossible, and society has to make a choice. There is no happy middle ground where you can have monolithic religion and no extremism.

I don't think it's possible to have any religion and no extremism. Extremism doesn't require a monolithic religion. Having multiple religions in a country might make it possible to reduce the amount of extremism, but it might also increase the amount of extremism because it opens up the possibility of one religion gaining much more power and because it's extremely common for a religion to not have much tolerance for other religions. It requires a bit of mental gymnastics to believe that the supreme creator of the universe has specified your ideology as the one true ideology and simultaneously believe that it's fine for other people to believe the same about their ideology. Obviously it's impossible for both to be true. Why even tolerate the infidel/heretic, let alone allow them an equal position in society? It's possible for a theist to do so. It's possible for a majority of theists to do so. But it's very likely impossible to have a situation where all theists do so all the time, so there will still be at least some extremism in a country with >1 religion with significant power. It also creates a constantly available scapegoat group for group advocacy politicians to use. There's always something bad that can be blamed on <insert group here>.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
Caporegime
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I didn't say that it was immediately extremely successful.

You claimed:

Christianity] was created for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining absolute power by more subtle political manipulation.

Where's the evidence for this? You won't find a single professional historian who agrees. It's nonsense.

Also, the persecution of Christians was (a) rather less universal and extreme than later Christian propaganda makes it out to be

The persecution of Christians was initially sporadic and localised, but as time went on it became systematic and widespread. The last great persecution (under Diocletian) was particularly brutal.

and (b) to be expected when Christianity was working towards conquering the Roman empire and destroying its religion and at least some of its traditions.

But Christianity wasn't doing any of those things. Even its pagan opponents never accused it of doing these things.
 
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Caporegime
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Maajid Nawaz makes an interesting point re: the coverage of this stuff, immediately after the Christ Church attacks public figures/media orgs don't seem to have any issue calling out the far right ideology behind them, though SJWs seem to also want to shut down any critics of Islamists too.

Now with these attacks the same public figures/media orgs are a bit less direct in their criticism:




Maajid has a long way to go before he completes his penance for the years he spent as a member of a radical Islamic extremist group, but he's slowly getting there.

He makes a good point.
 
Caporegime
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Yes. Historically, Christianity had no affinity to any nation.

You’re thinking about nations like France, Germany, Italy, Britain... I don’t whatsoever mean that.

I mean the fluid idea of a religious state, it existed in Europe during the Middle Ages, in the caliphate and was far more aligned to nations the further back you go (Babylon, Thrace, Greece, Egypt, Andalusia etc). It’s a lot less rigid nowadays (ignoring the tiffle between England and the Vatican).

As we secularised (ironically, as the ideals of liberty/personal freedoms came about), that idea of the religious state died pretty much when colonialism died (it’s last vestige), being more welcoming because faith in the immaterial gave way to the material.

Now you could say the idea of a Christian, Islamic, and unfortunately (as retaliation for attempted genocide) a Jewish state is back on the agenda. The most ‘successful’ being the latter for various reasons I’m sure we don’t need to actually discuss. Christianity runs up against a hefty secular wall (rightly) against non religious people, while Islam does not (as they usually leave for better lives).
 
Caporegime
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Lol at "easter worshippers" by Obama and Clinton. :rolleyes: They'd probably be punished by their masters for using the word Christian.

It’s a pagan holiday aswell. Christianity loved stealing that ****. But yes they’re being either obtuse or implicitly saying it’s Christian enough to not need to say it.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jun 2011
Posts
6,012
It's the same in every single ******* thread.

  1. We have a terror attack somewhere in the world.
  2. The usual apologists jump up and down saying "You can't blame Islam, no news has come through yet"
  3. News comes through
  4. The apologists then try to dig up past Christian attacks
  5. End up having to go far back as the crusades
  6. The thread becomes a Derpfest and the apologists do more and more crazy mental gymnastics as they post
  7. Thread is locked

We then have another terror attack and whole thing starts again, seeya guys i'm done and i've saved myself hours or reading and posting


Quoted for truth.

Have we had all the derping apologists in here yet? Has crazy posted yet?
 
Caporegime
Joined
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Posts
32,741
Mental gymnastics knows no bounds.

It’s not mental gymnastics it’s the truth. And it makes sense for a religion wishing to overtake others, you should take over their celebration periods or erase them.

The biggest and obvious use is the calendar we use. This is really quite irrelevant though, and doesn’t really have a bearing on extremism.
 
Caporegime
Joined
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Posts
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Location
Adelaide, South Australia
You’re thinking about nations like France, Germany, Italy, Britain... I don’t whatsoever mean that.

I mean the fluid idea of a religious state, it existed in Europe during the Middle Ages, in the caliphate and was far more aligned to nations the further back you go (Babylon, Thrace, Greece, Egypt, Andalusia etc). It’s a lot less rigid nowadays (ignoring the tiffle between England and the Vatican).

I understand what you mean. Christianity did not embrace the concept of a religious state until the late 4th century, when Theodosius I declared Christianity the state religion and prohibited all others.
 
Caporegime
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Posts
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Location
Adelaide, South Australia
It’s a pagan holiday aswell. Christianity loved stealing that ****. But yes they’re being either obtuse or implicitly saying it’s Christian enough to not need to say it.

Easter is not a pagan holiday, has never been a pagan holiday, and was certainly not 'stolen' from pagans by Christians.

Easter is an original Christian festival, and was celebrated as early as the 1st century AD.
 
Associate
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It’s not mental gymnastics it’s the truth. And it makes sense for a religion wishing to overtake others, you should take over their celebration periods or erase them.

The biggest and obvious use is the calendar we use. This is really quite irrelevant though, and doesn’t really have a bearing on extremism.

What holiday is easter stealing as its directly celebrating the resurrection of Christ?

And yes it is mental gymnastics. The world bent over backwards for New Zealand with very direct and specific references to the faith in question. And yet in this incidence which is inarguably far far worse at a specifically targeted time, its wishy washy crap.
 
Caporegime
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Posts
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What holiday is easter stealing as its directly celebrating the resurrection of Christ?

Many different places, the ideas of rebirth are millennia older than Christianity itself, in Babylon (something about samiramis? And rebirth), Egypt, Germanic tribes (goddess of spring) the mish mash of cultures between them.

I guess stealing is a bit harsh, let’s go with working with material set about prior. The only things innately Christian about it is Christ, anything else is largely just continuing the idea of rebirth and springtime. But as I said, this is not relevant, and I’m not a historian willing to try to connect tenuous beliefs/theories/ideas together.

If you feel Christianity owns an entire period, go right ahead.
 
Soldato
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Location
Essex
It’s a pagan holiday aswell. Christianity loved stealing that ****. But yes they’re being either obtuse or implicitly saying it’s Christian enough to not need to say it.
So the pagans had a son of god who came and died and resurrected at the same time as Christian easter?
 
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