 |
|
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
|
| Post subject: |  |
|
One question I'd like to ask Wokko (and others): if you acknowledge that mainstream Christianity has been slowly reformed over time and is at last able to function in Western societies without causing too much death and mayhem, what makes you think that the same thing can't happen to Islam? Indeed, that the same thing isn't happening to Islam right now?
Anyone who claims that there is some fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity (regarding the aggression, intolerance and imperialism that they have been associated with over the last millennium or so) needs an urgent injection of history, followed by a booster shot of perspective. You can forget about the argument PTID and I were having in the other thread; this is where we agree 100%: improve the living conditions in third-world countries and you will start to see a rise in secular progressive values and a fall in religious fundamentalism. Leave the stuff about the unique evil and intolerance inherent in Islam to Koran-burning Christian fundamentalist preachers.
(BTW, PTID, slightly off-topic question, but I can't help myself: why do you always write "the Chinese" in quotation marks? Who even says that?  )
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
|
|
|
 |
swoop42 
Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you?
Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Location: The 18
|
| Post subject: | |
|
It's 2014 David not 1514.
These "third world countries" in one form or another have long existed before Australia and the United States for example were settled by Europeans.
What's taking them so long to embrace and evolve to more modern times in there ideology and way of life?
Let's face it some religions and cultures just aren't equal I'm afraid.
Someone had to say it.
_________________
He's mad. He's bad. He's MaynHARD! |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| swoop42 wrote: | It's 2014 David not 1514.
These "third world countries" in one form or another have long existed before Australia and the United States for example were settled by Europeans.
What's taking them so long to embrace and evolve to more modern times in there ideology and way of life?
Let's face it some religions and cultures just aren't equal I'm afraid.
Someone had to say it. |
Embrace it? The more extreme mullahs and clerics, of which there are many, would be more than happy to drag society back to 1514.
In direct response to David, I'd suggest having a look at more recent history and seeing how many events similar to recent Islamic extremest actions there are. Lets say, since 1900.
I think the answer will be blatantly obvious as to what the difference is. Christianity in it's various versions, has evolved generally far more than Islam and it's also lost it's hold over society.
| David wrote: | | improve the living conditions in third-world countries and you will start to see a rise in secular progressive values and a fall in religious fundamentalism. |
Idealistically nice, facts prove that wrong. Just look at the number of extremists who have come from comfortable western homes where they have everything. In fact, Islamic extremists have systematically torn down what was progressive society and turned countries into 3rd world shitholes because it's easier to control people. Many of the places in the middle east that are now wastelands were prosperous borderline western societies before Islamic extremists got a hold of them.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
|
| Post subject: | |
|
The point, Swoop, is not that Christianity has reformed while Islam hasn't. The point is that Christianity was every bit as bad as Islam is today when, like Islam, it had the power. Religion is a pretty minor player in most (all?) civilised countries. So you can't compare the behavior of people in a religious Islamic country with the behaviour of people in a religious Christian country because there aren't any religious Christian countries, not to speak of, not unless you count backwaters like Ireland (which has an appalling human rights record, particularly if you are so unfortunate as to be a woman, let along a pregnant one).
Most people in the so-called "Christian" countries are not religious. Islam isn't the bad thing here, religion is. Islam just happens to be the major religion in the place where the troubles are. If Syria was Christian, or Hindu, do you seriously think that they wouldn't be shooting the crap of each other just the same? Or, on another level (as Mugwump pointed out earlier), violence and greed and aggression is the problem, and religion (as I pointed out earlier) mixes in with it in a particularly nasty way to cement the evil.
Think of it this way: the building stones of misery are and always have been the acts of violent, aggressive, greedy men. Shared belief - almost always irrational, intolerant shared religious belief - is the cement they use to glue those acts together and create a long-term state of misery and oppression. Is Islam evil? Sure it is. It's possibly even slightly more evil than Christianity, though that's a big call to make in a close-run race, and let's not forget the horrors brought to us by Hinduism and especially Shinto, never mind the bloodthirsty South American ones. But Islam isn't the problem. Not in itself. The problem is that ignorance and poverty provide fertile breeding grounds for anti-social and irrational belief systems (like Islam and Christianity and all the rest of them), and from there it is a short trip to crusade and jihad and pogram and the slaughterhouse. All religions are evil in their different ways, but it's only when one of them gains power that it becomes deeply evil.
On another matter -
| swoop42 wrote: | | These "third world countries" in one form or another have long existed before Australia and the United States for example were settled by Europeans. What's taking them so long to embrace and evolve to more modern times in there ideology and way of life? |
We are. We did (or our ancestors did). We invaded those places, we wrecked their economies. We started civil wars to gather slaves to work on our plantations, we recruited their poor into our armies and then set them to fight against each other so that we could take away the gold and the rubber and anything else we thought was worth having, and so that we could impose our own absurd religions on them. Europe became rich because of Africa and South America and India and China, those places provided the gold which England used to fund the Industrial revolution, and the slaves which harvested the cotton, and the rubber and the oil which made our eonomies possible.
Read some fucking history mate. It's all there. None of this is secret or even controversial. You could start with the history of the Belgian Congo. That's one of the more spectacular examples, but being a relatively simple tale it is easily read and understood. We westerners murdered 20 million of them just because we wanted to get rich selling rubber. Yes, you read that right: 20 million Africans died in that one country alone because we wanted more rubber. No-one even denies it anymore, they just don't talk about it and try not to understand it and wonder why westerners are unpopular.
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
|
|
|
|
Morrigu
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| stui magpie wrote: | | David wrote: | | improve the living conditions in third-world countries and you will start to see a rise in secular progressive values and a fall in religious fundamentalism. |
Idealistically nice, facts prove that wrong. Just look at the number of extremists who have come from comfortable western homes where they have everything. In fact, Islamic extremists have systematically torn down what was progressive society and turned countries into 3rd world shitholes because it's easier to control people. |
Certainly easier to control women!
Personally I reckon that is the major aim of the extremists under the guise of their ideal of Islam - can't have women having rights and being able to be educated , drive, choose their husbands and careers etc etc etc!
_________________
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Morrigu wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | David wrote: | | improve the living conditions in third-world countries and you will start to see a rise in secular progressive values and a fall in religious fundamentalism. |
Idealistically nice, facts prove that wrong. Just look at the number of extremists who have come from comfortable western homes where they have everything. In fact, Islamic extremists have systematically torn down what was progressive society and turned countries into 3rd world shitholes because it's easier to control people. |
Certainly easier to control women!
Personally I reckon that is the major aim of the extremists under the guise of their ideal of Islam - can't have women having rights and being able to be educated , drive, choose their husbands and careers etc etc etc! |
Yep, sure makes it easier to be a bloke when you can make an arrangement to marry someone instead of having to have them like you, and then they have no property rights, can't work etc etc.
Absolutely that is appealing to some.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Ahh, sigh of relief, finally, some common sense
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| stui magpie wrote: | | swoop42 wrote: | It's 2014 David not 1514.
These "third world countries" in one form or another have long existed before Australia and the United States for example were settled by Europeans.
What's taking them so long to embrace and evolve to more modern times in there ideology and way of life?
Let's face it some religions and cultures just aren't equal I'm afraid.
Someone had to say it. |
Embrace it? The more extreme mullahs and clerics, of which there are many, would be more than happy to drag society back to 1514.
In direct response to David, I'd suggest having a look at more recent history and seeing how many events similar to recent Islamic extremest actions there are. Lets say, since 1900.
I think the answer will be blatantly obvious as to what the difference is. Christianity in it's various versions, has evolved generally far more than Islam and it's also lost it's hold over society.
| David wrote: | | improve the living conditions in third-world countries and you will start to see a rise in secular progressive values and a fall in religious fundamentalism. |
Idealistically nice, facts prove that wrong. Just look at the number of extremists who have come from comfortable western homes where they have everything. In fact, Islamic extremists have systematically torn down what was progressive society and turned countries into 3rd world shitholes because it's easier to control people. Many of the places in the middle east that are now wastelands were prosperous borderline western societies before Islamic extremists got a hold of them. |
It's quite the opposite, Stui. They're a few misleading hints you've provided; have a go at putting numbers on those claims and you'll see what I mean.
The overwhelming weight of the problem comes from colonialism, unresolved borders, shoddy part-development; mutually-corrupt resource economies and now trans-regional alliances. Additionally, many such countries suffer an ongoing basic health burden by sheer initial geography (e.g., malaria), and were then hit with HIV on top of everything else.
Moreover, the period of time is quite small in terms of modern opportunity for rectification or power settlement. There have been no absolute wars of annihilation in many cases enabling countries to start again, such as the two world wars, the Pacific War in the case of Japan, the Korean War or the Vietnam War. Instead, there has been ongoing disease, civil wars, resource warlording, and so on.
In other cases, just as things started to improve, Western powers backed dictators, or war from larger surrounding nations spilled over and swept countries along, and so on.
What is more, many countries you might think ought to be doing better, such as India, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, many Latin American and African countries, and the Philippines, aren't. In each case there are peculiar limiting factors, the most salient being decentralised historical tribal structures. It can take centuries alone, if ever, for tribal societies to fight their way to cities, centralised kingdoms and feudal systems amenable to modern capitalism. Even worse, if they're in tropical areas, forget an agricultural revolution building you cities and triggering centralisation because such areas often have very bad soils, leaving local economies in the hands of mining, logging and other violent, dispossessing, unsustainable, extractive processes.
Unfortunately, one of the most little-known facts about development is that capitalism universally requires strong centralised coordination (hence there's no such things as a "free market", as you rightly said in another thread), making it very difficult for archipelagos and tribal systems to ever develop in the way we imagine they should. Cities in the right spots can do okay, but there's no guarantee things spread from that point. Such factors are the main reason why countries like Colombia and Bolivia are trumpeted one minute as new miracles of capitalism, and are back in chaos the next. (Just look at the challenge confronting China, which had the soils, geography, feudalism and centralisation, cities and scale, and so on, and the effort it took to get the country where it is today; and yet, things are still so fragile, with rival powers cheering for its failure from the member's stand).
Comparing what you see now in the West, and thinking you spot a formula that escapes the Dark Ages and black death, runs from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment through the (monumentally filthy) industrial revolution, colonial imperialism, permanent states of war between powers, two world wars, endless postcolonial interferences, through to the Cold War, the 1960s and 1970s rights and cultural revolution right down to today is beyond silly. Countries can get stuck at any one or more of those major junctures and it is nothing but a miracle for the best of what you see today to still be standing (but I'll take what luck I can!).
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Blimey! Just when you write someone off as a gibberish-merchant, he comes out with a post like that!
Well spoken, Sir!
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
|
|
|
|
Pa Marmo
Side by Side
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Location: Nicks BB member #617
|
| Post subject: | |
|
So many geniuses on this site, saying Christianity this and Christianity that, the majority of you wouldn't know Bible based Christianity if you fell over it.
The majority of the tripe spewed out by PTD and Tannin has nothing to do with Bible based Christianity, but refers to atrocities carried out by Catholicism and Anglicanism, neither of which is Bible based Christianity.
Bible based Christianity never hurt anyone ever, it prays for its enemies, turns the other cheek, gives from a pure heart, seeks to help, heal and comfort the lost. And before David jumps all over me referring to mum and dad, they aren't Christians either, they are in a cult.
_________________
Genesis 1:1 |
|
|
|
|
Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
|
| Post subject: | |
|
^ yes, That's the best ptid post I've ever read. I don't agree with all of it, by any means, but it was a high-quality, thought-provoking and jargon-free read with some wise insights (eg the importance of a strong central coordination in building early Capitalism). History is not destiny, but some nations have the chances that kids in poverty on a sink estate have. They are surrounded by opportunity and good example, but there's a lot that makes it hard for them.
I might need a lie down. 😯
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| pietillidie wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | swoop42 wrote: | It's 2014 David not 1514.
These "third world countries" in one form or another have long existed before Australia and the United States for example were settled by Europeans.
What's taking them so long to embrace and evolve to more modern times in there ideology and way of life?
Let's face it some religions and cultures just aren't equal I'm afraid.
Someone had to say it. |
Embrace it? The more extreme mullahs and clerics, of which there are many, would be more than happy to drag society back to 1514.
In direct response to David, I'd suggest having a look at more recent history and seeing how many events similar to recent Islamic extremest actions there are. Lets say, since 1900.
I think the answer will be blatantly obvious as to what the difference is. Christianity in it's various versions, has evolved generally far more than Islam and it's also lost it's hold over society.
| David wrote: | | improve the living conditions in third-world countries and you will start to see a rise in secular progressive values and a fall in religious fundamentalism. |
Idealistically nice, facts prove that wrong. Just look at the number of extremists who have come from comfortable western homes where they have everything. In fact, Islamic extremists have systematically torn down what was progressive society and turned countries into 3rd world shitholes because it's easier to control people. Many of the places in the middle east that are now wastelands were prosperous borderline western societies before Islamic extremists got a hold of them. |
It's quite the opposite, Stui. They're a few misleading hints you've provided; have a go at putting numbers on those claims and you'll see what I mean.
The overwhelming weight of the problem comes from colonialism, unresolved borders, shoddy part-development; mutually-corrupt resource economies and now trans-regional alliances. Additionally, many such countries suffer an ongoing basic health burden by sheer initial geography (e.g., malaria), and were then hit with HIV on top of everything else.
Moreover, the period of time is quite small in terms of modern opportunity for rectification or power settlement. There have been no absolute wars of annihilation in many cases enabling countries to start again, such as the two world wars, the Pacific War in the case of Japan, the Korean War or the Vietnam War. Instead, there has been ongoing disease, civil wars, resource warlording, and so on.
In other cases, just as things started to improve, Western powers backed dictators, or war from larger surrounding nations spilled over and swept countries along, and so on.
What is more, many countries you might think ought to be doing better, such as India, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, many Latin American and African countries, and the Philippines, aren't. In each case there are peculiar limiting factors, the most salient being decentralised historical tribal structures. It can take centuries alone, if ever, for tribal societies to fight their way to cities, centralised kingdoms and feudal systems amenable to modern capitalism. Even worse, if they're in tropical areas, forget an agricultural revolution building you cities and triggering centralisation because such areas often have very bad soils, leaving local economies in the hands of mining, logging and other violent, dispossessing, unsustainable, extractive processes.
Unfortunately, one of the most little-known facts about development is that capitalism universally requires strong centralised coordination (hence there's no such things as a "free market", as you rightly said in another thread), making it very difficult for archipelagos and tribal systems to ever develop in the way we imagine they should. Cities in the right spots can do okay, but there's no guarantee things spread from that point. Such factors are the main reason why countries like Colombia and Bolivia are trumpeted one minute as new miracles of capitalism, and are back in chaos the next. (Just look at the challenge confronting China, which had the soils, geography, feudalism and centralisation, cities and scale, and so on, and the effort it took to get the country where it is today; and yet, things are still so fragile, with rival powers cheering for its failure from the member's stand).
Comparing what you see now in the West, and thinking you spot a formula that escapes the Dark Ages and black death, runs from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment through the (monumentally filthy) industrial revolution, colonial imperialism, permanent states of war between powers, two world wars, endless postcolonial interferences, through to the Cold War, the 1960s and 1970s rights and cultural revolution right down to today is beyond silly. Countries can get stuck at any one or more of those major junctures and it is nothing but a miracle for the best of what you see today to still be standing (but I'll take what luck I can!). |
Pay that, Good post.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Pa Marmo wrote: | So many geniuses on this site, saying Christianity this and Christianity that, the majority of you wouldn't know Bible based Christianity if you fell over it.
The majority of the tripe spewed out by PTD and Tannin has nothing to do with Bible based Christianity, but refers to atrocities carried out by Catholicism and Anglicanism, neither of which is Bible based Christianity.
Bible based Christianity never hurt anyone ever, it prays for its enemies, turns the other cheek, gives from a pure heart, seeks to help, heal and comfort the lost. And before David jumps all over me referring to mum and dad, they aren't Christians either, they are in a cult. |
Mate, the broad sweep of history is not yours to be offended by. It says nothing about you or Laird or any living Christian for that matter! Not even present issues, such as the pedophilia scandals (not just in the Catholic Church - they're everywhere you turn), say anything about you.
Just because I don't share your interpretation of the Christian Bible, doesn't mean much, either. I'm only interested in what you do for your community, which is no doubt a lot of good. However, if you support un-Jesus-like racism, un-Jesus-like homophobia, un-Jesus-like interference in politics, un-Jesus-like flawed economics which cause suffering, un-Jesus-like treatment of the poor and vulnerable such as asylum seekers, and un-Jesus-like psychological abuse of the vulnerable and anxious, then we have strong cause for argument.
I do worry you think there are "purer" forms of Christianity; unfortunately, the behavioural statistics don't bear that out. But I understand the temptation well enough, and it's not an uncommon human thought by any means, so I can't judge you for that. In my view, the hardest thing to grasp about the theology of the Gospels is that the burden of Gethsemane is a universal one; in the shadow of the cross there are neither too good, nor not good enough; only people just like us with their own crosses to bear and the nail scars to prove it.
Thus endeth today's sermon.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
"stui magpie" wrote (in part)
........Embrace it? The more extreme mullahs and clerics, of which there are many, would be more than happy to drag society back to 1514.
In direct response to David, I'd suggest having a look at more recent history and seeing how many events similar to recent Islamic extremest actions there are. Lets say, since 1900........
_______________________________________________________________
WPT replied
Allowing me to introducing myself to your beloved countree.
Mine relatives who were living in Poland & were murdered in places like Auschwitz ( I have uncles & Aunts & murdered there) & other places in Poland & the Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, would like to say cheerio & thank the Christian churches for for their active role in the destruction of modern European Jewry. Can include many other countries including Greece, Rumania & Hungary amongst others.
The Nazis didn't come from mars & didn't work in isolation. Amongst other things the active role of the church was fundamental to the murder & genocide in WW2.
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
|
| Post subject: | |
|
^ Sorry, the Christian - and especially Catholic - churches certainly have things to be ashamed about in their institutional response to Nazism, though they also have things to be proud of in places (Bonhoeffer et al) ; but to suggest that the Nazis came somehow out of the Christian churces - which I assume to be the implication of your "didn't come from Mars" comment - is a fairly unusual historical interpretation, and you'd have to elaborate on that for me.
I hold no great candle for the Church, though I do see merit in the words of the Christian founder - i just sense that you're drawing too long a bow with your post.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum
|
|
The Rules
FAQ
Usergroups
Calendar
Search
Log in
Register
