With Merkel's Foes in Disarray, Germany Defies the Trump Trend

[Dill]

(04-28-2017, 12:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Hell, I'm pretty sure we saw our field dressing on one of them; however, the point is valid. I have been to villages where they are just afraid to help. Of course I've spoken with translators; some are better than others. The locals usually don't like the "good" ones.

That's a great story. We have our differences Bfine, but you bring valuable perspective and details to these dialogues.

[Dill]

(04-28-2017, 12:26 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Aww man, you were making progress in the other thread.  It's not a debate over which one is "better".  What is being pointed out is that a religion whose founder, and foundation, is steeped in slavery, rape, forced conversion and murder is likely going to engender followers who think that slavery, rape, forced conversion and murder are ok.

Now, here's a pop quiz, which of the three monotheism am I talking about.  There's only one and you have a 33% even if you're just guessing.  C'mon, you can do it!

Umm, I can see that ONE of the three Abrahmic religions is ruled out right away. Beyond that I do not see a clear demarcation if slavery, rape, and murder are the criteria. That ancient Jews did not "forcibly convert" is hardly redeeming when you consider the alternative, as they saw it.  Not looking for a big argument here. Just sayin'.

I add that hippy-like qualities of Christianity's founder have not inhibited slavery, rape, forced conversion, and murder, to the degree one might expect, though I think they have made a difference at various points in the history of Christianity.  Only ONE of the three monotheisms says "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The other two were in agreement on stoning.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(04-28-2017, 10:19 PM)Dill Wrote: Umm, I can see that ONE of the three Abrahmic religions is ruled out right away. Beyond that I do not see a clear demarcation if slavery, rape, and murder are the criteria. That ancient Jews did not "forcibly convert" is hardly redeeming when you consider the alternative, as they saw it.  Not looking for a big argument here. Just sayin'.

At the risk of appearing to let Sam Harris do all my thinking for me I'd refer you to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX-UPcrejHc

It pretty much sums up my feelings on Israel and judaism.  Also, while you are correct, and is pointed out in my link, that parts of the old testament are as vile as you will find in any book, maybe the worst example there is, you won't find many jews who subscribe to them, now or a thousand years ago.  If we operate on your assertion that the only real difference in the origins of judaism and islam is the idea of forced conversion we must ask a very important follow up question.  Why then do we get such disparate results from their faithful, again, not only now, but centuries ago?

Quote:I add that hippy-like qualities of Christianity's founder have not inhibited slavery, rape, forced conversion, and murder, to the degree one might expect, though I think they have made a difference at various points in the history of Christianity.  Only ONE of the three monotheisms says "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The other two were in agreement on stoning.

I would counter that much of the extremism of christianity was based on the words of the old testament, both historically and today.  You know exactly what kind of christian you are dealing with the moment you hear, "in Leviticus".  Jesus doesn't get off lightly for me, as he introduced one of the most vile concepts of all time IMO, that of eternal damnation for failure to follow his edicts.  However, in so doing I think he, perhaps inadvertently, advanced the idea that punishing someone in this life (the only life we get by my thinking) is both pointless and meaningless in the face of the punishment they face upon their death.  So a vile idea actually spares violence in the real world and, like I said, inadvertently made this world better to live in.  Regardless, one thing you cannot, ever, claim about Jesus is that he was a conquering warlord who routinely engaged in violence.  

[Dill]

(04-29-2017, 01:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: At the risk of appearing to let Sam Harris do all my thinking for me I'd refer you to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX-UPcrejHc
It pretty much sums up my feelings on Israel and judaism.  Also, while you are correct, and is pointed out in my link, that parts of the old testament are as vile as you will find in any book, maybe the worst example there is, you won't find many jews who subscribe to them, now or a thousand years ago.  If we operate on your assertion that the only real difference in the origins of judaism and islam is the idea of forced conversion we must ask a very important follow up question.  Why then do we get such disparate results from their faithful, again, not only now, but centuries ago?

1.  Regarding Harris, I’ll just say here that arrogance combined with lack of knowledge, plus the double standard, grated on me throughout, especially during the slide from Hamas to the Islamic State and subsequent characterizations of Israeli state terrorism as “restraint.” I recognize some of his examples of “hate” from the diplomacy videos on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I don’t expect most Americans to know a lot about the modern history of the Middle East, let alone Medieval and Ancient. So I understand why this sort of thing appears persuasive and “rational.” For anyone interested in attaining more depth on the subject, I recommend books like Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine and Covering Islam. For people with less patience, but who would like an accurate baseline for beginning to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the real root the problems debated here) I recommend the Primer on the Middle East Research and Information Project.  http://www.merip.org/primer-palestine-israel-arab-israeli-conflict-new#The%20Negotiation%20Process

2. Regarding the objectionable laws set down in Leviticus you, SSF, say “you won’t find many Jews who subscribe to them now or a thousand years ago.” You want to know “why we get such disparate results from the faithful, again, not only now, but centuries ago.”  To answer these questions honestly and with minimal depth, we need to push the question back another millennium.

Two thousand+ years ago you would hardly find any Jews who didn’t subscribe to the aforementioned laws. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine recorded in Joshua and Judges is not real history, but a narrative affirmation of sacred rights. One of its darkest episodes would be the razing of Jericho in which (save for Rahab and her family) the entire population is put to the sword—men, women and children—plus all animals, including Oxen and donkeys. (But even then, Judaism was not one thing, and moving away from the earlier barbaric practices, developing laws and morality which would be the foundation of ours today, as well as that of Islam. I regard Leviticus not as some monstrous Jewish aberration but a stage in the development of my own modern worldview and a part of my heritage too, though I am an atheist.)

The Seleucid and Roman administrators of Palestine during the last two centuries BCE would give you an earful regarding Jewish unruliness and terrorism.  In the 1st century CE, they were eventually given an exemption from the symbolic requirement that all subject peoples acknowledge the divinity of Augustus. Their sensitivity to religious slight was legendary, ready to war over issues like circumcision, the presence of foreign "idols," and verbal slights to their God.

There were cosmopolitan Jews like Josephus, whose The Jewish War (75 CE) gives us a close up picture of the sicarii (knifemen who murdered Jews cooperating with Rome) and the zealots who attacked Greek and Roman civilians and brought Roman destruction upon Judea and Diaspora upon the upper classes. Their willingness to die and create situations in which everyone around them would have to die as well are amply illustrated in Josephus’ narrative of the siege of Jerusalem. At one point they even destroyed the food supplies in Jerusalem to force the inhabitants to fight the Romans rather than surrender. Still not as bad as the Sicarii though, who at one point, after they took over Masada, massacred hundreds of Jewish civilians in a nearby village (including children—their own people!). You have probably heard about Masada, where over 900 of them all committed suicide when the Romans finally breached the fortress.

3. So how do we get from there to those Jews who, a thousand years later I agree, are indeed law-abiding, orderly and generally tolerant citizens of both Christian and Muslim cities across Europe and the Middle East?

The Diaspora plays a large role here. There were Jewish communities all over the Mediterranean, but when the Romans finally closed down any resemblance of a Jewish state and re-located the rich, educated upper classes to various other parts of the empire, forbidding their return, they were suddenly permanent minorities who eventually came to espouse the value of tolerance. (As did Christian minority denominations, after the terrible destruction of the 80 years war, the 30 years war, and the English Civil War.)

Not right away, of course. One thinks here of Kito’s War in the 2nd century CE, in the 2nd century CE, which was fought not in Judea but in various Jewish communities in places like North Africa, Cyprus and Alexandria, which rose up and destroyed “heathen” Roman Temples (for much the same reason ISIS does today) and killed hundreds of thousands of peaceful Roman citizens. The accounts of Jewish behavior rival ISIS today. Greeks and Romans were supposedly disemboweled and their intestines were fashioned into belts. (The Jewish Encyclopedia thinks there may be some exaggeration http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5212-dion-cassius.) The consequence was that the Jewish population of places like Cyprus was pretty much wiped out and the property of those in Alexandria was confiscated to pay for the ruined temples. The Roman’s called the extinction of this rebellion Trajan’s War. http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/roman-jewish-wars/roman-jewish-wars-7/? (Can you imagine Roman and Greek cities refusing to take in Jewish refugees for fear zealots might be among them? Jews were forbidden entry to Egypt for a century thereafter.) This was a hard lesson for diaspora Jews, but it stuck.

By the time we reach the year 1017, peaceful, law-abiding Jewish communities were second-class citizens in both Muslim and Christian lands, but for the next thousand years, one could argue they had much more to fear from Christians. The First Crusade began with the massacre of Jews in Germany and ended with the massacre of Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem. The greatest impetus to the formation of contemporary Israel would be first, Russian pogroms of the 19th and early 20th century, and then the Holocaust perpetrated by a “Christian” state. Sandwiched between these events were enough massacres and pogroms and confiscations and expulsions to keep Jews in constant fear for their existence, which could be extinguished by any crazy rumor and mass hysteria caused by wars and natural and economic calamities.

I could offer a similar history of how Christians—some of them—learned tolerance the hard way.  I have said nothing here about why Muslims who for centuries lived peacefully with Jews and Christians in Palestine and the Levant may now indeed want to murder them—perhaps they just started reading the Qu’ran?  That is an issue I could take up in another post. But I hope this brief synopsis indicates why I have little patience with Maher/Harris-style arguments which separate holy texts from any historical context and shout “Look at what this says!” and ask “Why don’t we see Mormon suicide bombers?” or claim “Muslim terrorism has nothing to do with war and dispossession.”

[Dill]

(04-29-2017, 01:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I would counter that much of the extremism of christianity was based on the words of the old testament, both historically and today.  You know exactly what kind of christian you are dealing with the moment you hear, "in Leviticus".  Jesus doesn't get off lightly for me, as he introduced one of the most vile concepts of all time IMO, that of eternal damnation for failure to follow his edicts.  However, in so doing I think he, perhaps inadvertently, advanced the idea that punishing someone in this life (the only life we get by my thinking) is both pointless and meaningless in the face of the punishment they face upon their death.  So a vile idea actually spares violence in the real world and, like I said, inadvertently made this world better to live in.  Regardless, one thing you cannot, ever, claim about Jesus is that he was a conquering warlord who routinely engaged in violence.  

1. I agree that most Christian extremism is grounded in the Old Testament. But I think Leviticus is not the primary problem. Rather it is Exodus 20:3--"Thou shalt have no other gods before thee." This is the singular ground of intolerance in all three religions of the book, which had made all three more intolerant than other major religions like Buddhism or Hinduism.

2. Jesus may not be like Joshua, a conquering warlord who routinely engaged in violence, but that way was not easily open to a carpenter's son.  And it not prevented some of his followers from becoming conquering warlords, etc. Another reason to pause before we suppose that religious behavior tracks invariably back to religious texts. We don't really know "Jesus." What we have are texts and a textual tradition stitched together hundreds of years after his existence. There are texts, like the Gospel of Thomas, which show a rather mean and vicious Jesus who uses his super powers to kill trees and birds and the like. But they were closed out of the canon most read today. Christians generally pick and choose what they want to believe from the Bible. At least the Gospels present people with programs like the Sermon on the Mount and lend them cultural authority. This I do regard as a positive. But it does little to explain the historical behavior of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

[Dill]

(04-28-2017, 07:55 PM)masterpanthera_t Wrote: Yet there is (or potentially could be) some aspect of the lure to terrorism from certain components within the "religious" texts (I put them in quotes simply because I'm not well versed in the differences between Hadiths and the Q'uran and the way different groups may interpret and value them).  A significant part of the terrorism is perpetrated by those who many would consider to be successful in life (doctors, engineers etc. at different levels of the terrorist organizational hierarchy).  Now what I'm attempting to inquire on is - what level of such behaviors is somewhat embedded in the interpretation of the religious texts, not just in the context of terrorism, but also many cultural aspects which if not anathemic are antithetical to the values of the civilized parts of the world? 

  However, is it not prudent that while acknowledging that the above mentioned differences exist in the Muslim world, that we delve deeper to understand the differences say between  Indonesia and Libya, or Saudia Arabia and Kosovo in terms of their Islamic beliefs and their impact on the cultural ethos?  And to further delve into why maybe we as a nation could judge the merits of the value systems of different countries before we just import them into our cultural fabric?  

  But part of the problem is that even when "moderate" people of intellectual curiosity and an eye on overall security for our nation, can't even ask these questions before being labeled as violators of religious rights or bigoted fools, how do we truly understand how the impacts of certain ideas (the stuff that was surveyed in say U.K. and elsewhere) will be felt in our society now and going forward?  
 

You raise a number of valid points here Masterp.

1. Religious behavior of Jews, Christians and Muslims usually is intimately connected to their texts, but the texts are simply not univocal. They are always read through traditions which frame them differently.  Think of Jews reading the story of Moses as the story of the lawgiver who guided the Jews to the Promised Land (but could not enter), and Christians reading it as the anti-type of Christ. Same words, very different content and prophetic import. Add to this historical context. Jews in a Jewish state and Christians in a Christian state tend to read their texts less tolerantly when they don't have to share power. This is why such a wide range of behavior is rooted in apparently the same texts and words. While we cannot ignore the words, we cannot simply look at them as unmediated directives which explain this or that group's behavior.

2. We on this list may profitably delve deeper into the various traditions of Islam, and the sometimes breathtaking differences which from our Western distance we call "the same." (A great example of what I am talking about can be found in a short, easy read: Clifford Geertz's Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1971.)) But remember that historians, religious scholars, and political scientists have been doing this for well over a century now. There are thousands of worthy books on the subject already there for us, if we have the will to read at least one or two. Your concern about letting people in the country who might impact our "cultural ethos", however, takes us in a different, perhaps anti-pluralist direction. Most would agree that we should not let someone in the country who wants to kill Christians or Jews. What is troubling now is the tendency to ascribe such intent to Muslims in general--to enough, at least, so that adherence to the religion becomes the primary criterion for profiling. That seems to me the purpose of the recent flood of information purporting to explain what Islam and Sharia "really" are, and aligning Medieval texts with the actions of some dispossessed and/or psychically wounded actors in the present. I would argue that if there is a damage to our cultural ethos, it would come from adopting racial, religious, and/or ethnic criteria of exclusion. The US has done that in the past, but have you noticed how few people brag about that?  Few say the Chinese Exclusion Act is an example of what made the US great. No one points to the Japanese internment as one of our finest hours. Some have argued that segregation was a great legal achievement, but that is no longer a majority position.

3. I am not sure there is a problem right now with understanding any impact that results from absence of knowledge. (Or perhaps I misunderstood your point?) We have our polls and surveys and ongoing social science studies measuring all aspects of how immigrants do or do not integrate in the US, though I think people may not always know how to access it. I don't want people to be attacked for moderate intellectual curiosity. I try not to do that. Though sometimes when I hear people arguing about what Islam is and why we should be worried, etc., I don't think I am hearing ideas that just popped in someone's head ex nihilo. Rather I see arguments and ideas migrating from Europe (cultural suicide) and the Middle East (eternal, inexplicable Muslim hatred for Jews), and purveyed by certain news sources and websites. I also see an odious genealogy behind some this, of which contemporary Americans may have little awareness. The invitation is to judge based upon the simplest sort of "evidence" and the clearest "logic," and the less one knows, the simpler and the clearer.

Just before writing this, I heard Donald Trump recite a poem in his speech tonight. It was about a nice lady with a good heart (American) who found a half frozen snake (Muslim immigrant) and took it home and fed it milk and honey to help it recover. When it did the snake bit the woman. She asked "Why would you bite me after I helped you? I took you in and saved your life. Now I will die because your bit is poisonous." The snake responded, "You knew I was a snake when you took me in."  The lyric does not say, "You didn't vet me properly and a percentage of us are dangerous." The message is that all we need to know about a snake is that it is a snake. The poem is a re-purposed lyric from "leftist" social activist Oscar Brown, who  adapted it from an Aesop fable.

To avoid getting people riled over Nazi analogies, I will just say that the world over genocidal hatred always involves reducing classes of people to vermin imagery--cockroaches, rats, poison mushrooms that look harmless, lice, and snakes--and teaching this to children.   Hatred doesn't always lead to genocide. It exists in every country, but the haters are usually to small in number or too far from the machinery of state to do any damage. Insecurity and eloquence can expand their numbers, control of the state their power.This is to say that snakes are not really our problem right now. But people peddling snake oil are.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(04-29-2017, 11:29 PM)Dill Wrote: You raise a number of valid points here Masterp.

1. Religious behavior of Jews, Christians and Muslims usually is intimately connected to their texts, but the texts are simply not univocal. They are always read through traditions which frame them differently.  Think of Jews reading the story of Moses as the story of the lawgiver who guided the Jews to the Promised Land (but could not enter), and Christians reading it as the anti-type of Christ. Same words, very different content and prophetic import. Add to this historical context. Jews in a Jewish state and Christians in a Christian state tend to read their texts less tolerantly when they don't have to share power. This is why such a wide range of behavior is rooted in apparently the same texts and words. While we cannot ignore the words, we cannot simply look at them as unmediated directives which explain this or that group's behavior.

2. We on this list may profitably delve deeper into the various traditions of Islam, and the sometimes breathtaking differences which from our Western distance we call "the same." (A great example of what I am talking about can be found in a short, easy read: Clifford Geertz's Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1971.)) But remember that historians, religious scholars, and political scientists have been doing this for well over a century now. There are thousands of worthy books on the subject already there for us, if we have the will to read at least one or two. Your concern about letting people in the country who might impact our "cultural ethos", however, takes us in a different, perhaps anti-pluralist direction. Most would agree that we should not let someone in the country who wants to kill Christians or Jews. What is troubling now is the tendency to ascribe such intent to Muslims in general--to enough, at least, so that adherence to the religion becomes the primary criterion for profiling. That seems to me the purpose of the recent flood of information purporting to explain what Islam and Sharia "really" are, and aligning Medieval texts with the actions of some dispossessed and/or psychically wounded actors in the present. I would argue that if there is a damage to our cultural ethos, it would come from adopting racial, religious, and/or ethnic criteria of exclusion. The US has done that in the past, but have you noticed how few people brag about that?  Few say the Chinese Exclusion Act is an example of what made the US great. No one points to the Japanese internment as one of our finest hours. Some have argued that segregation was a great legal achievement, but that is no longer a majority position.

3. I am not sure there is a problem right now with understanding any impact that results from absence of knowledge. (Or perhaps I misunderstood your point?) We have our polls and surveys and ongoing social science studies measuring all aspects of how immigrants do or do not integrate in the US, though I think people may not always know how to access it. I don't want people to be attacked for moderate intellectual curiosity. I try not to do that. Though sometimes when I hear people arguing about what Islam is and why we should be worried, etc., I don't think I am hearing ideas that just popped in someone's head ex nihilo. Rather I see arguments and ideas migrating from Europe (cultural suicide) and the Middle East (eternal, inexplicable Muslim hatred for Jews), and purveyed by certain news sources and websites. I also see an odious genealogy behind some this, of which contemporary Americans may have little awareness. The invitation is to judge based upon the simplest sort of "evidence" and the clearest "logic," and the less one knows, the simpler and the clearer.

Just before writing this, I heard Donald Trump recite a poem in his speech tonight. It was about a nice lady with a good heart (American) who found a half frozen snake (Muslim immigrant) and took it home and fed it milk and honey to help it recover. When it did the snake bit the woman. She asked "Why would you bite me after I helped you? I took you in and saved your life. Now I will die because your bit is poisonous." The snake responded, "You knew I was a snake when you took me in."  The lyric does not say, "You didn't vet me properly and a percentage of us are dangerous." The message is that all we need to know about a snake is that it is a snake. The poem is a re-purposed lyric from "leftist" social activist Oscar Brown, who  adapted it from an Aesop fable.

To avoid getting people riled over Nazi analogies, I will just say that the world over genocidal hatred always involves reducing classes of people to vermin imagery--cockroaches, rats, poison mushrooms that look harmless, lice, and snakes--and teaching this to children.   Hatred doesn't always lead to genocide. It exists in every country, but the haters are usually to small in number or too far from the machinery of state to do any damage. Insecurity and eloquence can expand their numbers, control of the state their power.This is to say that snakes are not really our problem right now. But people peddling snake oil are.

I'm going to address your other posts tomorrow as I'm going out right now.

What I will say is that this post is blatantly obvious copypasta.  Why no link to the source?

[GMDino]

(04-30-2017, 01:39 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm going to address your other posts tomorrow as I'm going out right now.

What I will say is that this post is blatantly obvious copypasta.  Why no link to the source?

(04-23-2017, 11:51 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't buy the numbers in that study at all.  Gun owners aren't going to be up front with poll takers anymore, likely never again.

Same point, I don't think people are even remotely honest with survey takers in this regard.  feel free to disagree, but also realize that Trump is president after every poll showed otherwise. (I'd point out that I predicted otherwise, for months)

Or perhaps your data sucks ass?

Haha, please.  You're talking to a man who deals with criminal behavior for a living.  Alcohol has a large effect on crimes like battery, and DV.  Burglary, robbery, etc. not so much.

I see you're unfamiliar with statistics, despite your claims otherwise.  Allow me to explain.  My father's family is from a comparatively underpopulated section of Iowa.  When he was a kid a woman killed her six children by throwing them in a well.  According to your amazing statistics the per capita murder rate for that area was immense!  It was also a bullshit statistic.  Research outliers and their effect on statistics.  The basic point is that the higher the sample size the more reliable the data.  But you knew that, being a student of statistics and all.

I don't know, ask the citizens of Chicago. 

Would it matter?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(04-30-2017, 12:54 PM)GMDino Wrote:

Would it matter?

Boring, this has been endlessly addressed.  Like you mentor you love to take things out of context or pretend they haven't been addressed.

As for your inane question, yes, it matters.  When you copy/paste a response and try and pass it off as your own, that's a problem.  Maybe you don't have a problem with blatant plagiarism or don't care about people being disingenuous.  I suppose we can add this to your list of unpleasant character traits. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(04-29-2017, 09:06 PM)Dill Wrote: 1.  Regarding Harris, I’ll just say here that arrogance combined with lack of knowledge, plus the double standard, grated on me throughout, especially during the slide from Hamas to the Islamic State and subsequent characterizations of Israeli state terrorism as “restraint.” I recognize some of his examples of “hate” from the diplomacy videos on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I don’t expect most Americans to know a lot about the modern history of the Middle East, let alone Medieval and Ancient. So I understand why this sort of thing appears persuasive and “rational.” For anyone interested in attaining more depth on the subject, I recommend books like Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine and Covering Islam. For people with less patience, but who would like an accurate baseline for beginning to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the real root the problems debated here) I recommend the Primer on the Middle East Research and Information Project.  http://www.merip.org/primer-palestine-israel-arab-israeli-conflict-new#The%20Negotiation%20Process

You have issues with his "arrogance" and "lack of knowledge" but can't address the points you disagree with?

Quote:2. Regarding the objectionable laws set down in Leviticus you, SSF, say “you won’t find many Jews who subscribe to them now or a thousand years ago.” You want to know “why we get such disparate results from the faithful, again, not only now, but centuries ago.”  To answer these questions honestly and with minimal depth, we need to push the question back another millennium.

Oh man, do you know how badly your damaging your argument with this point?  Essentially you're comparing the behavior of many muslims today to jews from 2,000 years ago.  2,000 years ago, when slavery was the norm, wholesale slaughter and subjugation were acceptable.  So, do we need to wait a further 2,000 years for muslims to stop blowing themselves up, treating women like chattel, raping and disfiguring women and executing homosexuals? 

Quote:Two thousand+ years ago you would hardly find any Jews who didn’t subscribe to the aforementioned laws. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine recorded in Joshua and Judges is not real history, but a narrative affirmation of sacred rights. One of its darkest episodes would be the razing of Jericho in which (save for Rahab and her family) the entire population is put to the sword—men, women and children—plus all animals, including Oxen and donkeys. (But even then, Judaism was not one thing, and moving away from the earlier barbaric practices, developing laws and morality which would be the foundation of ours today, as well as that of Islam. I regard Leviticus not as some monstrous Jewish aberration but a stage in the development of my own modern worldview and a part of my heritage too, though I am an atheist.)

The Seleucid and Roman administrators of Palestine during the last two centuries BCE would give you an earful regarding Jewish unruliness and terrorism.  In the 1st century CE, they were eventually given an exemption from the symbolic requirement that all subject peoples acknowledge the divinity of Augustus. Their sensitivity to religious slight was legendary, ready to war over issues like circumcision, the presence of foreign "idols," and verbal slights to their God.

There were cosmopolitan Jews like Josephus, whose The Jewish War (75 CE) gives us a close up picture of the sicarii (knifemen who murdered Jews cooperating with Rome) and the zealots who attacked Greek and Roman civilians and brought Roman destruction upon Judea and Diaspora upon the upper classes. Their willingness to die and create situations in which everyone around them would have to die as well are amply illustrated in Josephus’ narrative of the siege of Jerusalem. At one point they even destroyed the food supplies in Jerusalem to force the inhabitants to fight the Romans rather than surrender. Still not as bad as the Sicarii though, who at one point, after they took over Masada, massacred hundreds of Jewish civilians in a nearby village (including children—their own people!). You have probably heard about Masada, where over 900 of them all committed suicide when the Romans finally breached the fortress.

I appreciate your copy pasting this for us but I've addressed why it actually damages the point your trying to make.

Quote:3. So how do we get from there to those Jews who, a thousand years later I agree, are indeed law-abiding, orderly and generally tolerant citizens of both Christian and Muslim cities across Europe and the Middle East?The Diaspora plays a large role here. There were Jewish communities all over the Mediterranean, but when the Romans finally closed down any resemblance of a Jewish state and re-located the rich, educated upper classes to various other parts of the empire, forbidding their return, they were suddenly permanent minorities who eventually came to espouse the value of tolerance. (As did Christian minority denominations, after the terrible destruction of the 80 years war, the 30 years war, and the English Civil War.) 
Not right away, of course. One thinks here of Kito’s War in the 2nd century CE, in the 2nd century CE, which was fought not in Judea but in various Jewish communities in places like North Africa, Cyprus and Alexandria, which rose up and destroyed “heathen” Roman Temples  (for much the same reason ISIS does today) and killed hundreds of thousands of peaceful Roman citizens. The accounts of Jewish behavior rival ISIS today. Greeks and Romans were supposedly disemboweled and their intestines were fashioned into belts. (The Jewish Encyclopedia thinks there may be some exaggeration http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5212-dion-cassius.) The consequence was that the Jewish population of places like Cyprus was pretty much wiped out and the property of those in Alexandria was confiscated to pay for the ruined temples. The Roman’s called the extinction of this rebellion Trajan’s War. http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/roman-jewish-wars/roman-jewish-wars-7/? (Can you imagine Roman and Greek cities refusing to take in Jewish refugees for fear zealots might be among them? Jews were forbidden entry to Egypt for a century thereafter.) This was a hard lesson for diaspora Jews, but it stuck.

By the time we reach the year 1017, peaceful, law-abiding Jewish communities were second-class citizens in both Muslim and Christian lands, but for the next thousand years, one could argue they had much more to fear from Christians. The First Crusade began with the massacre of Jews in Germany and ended with the massacre of Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem. The greatest impetus to the formation of contemporary Israel would be first, Russian pogroms of the 19th and early 20th century, and then the Holocaust perpetrated by a “Christian” state. Sandwiched between these events were enough massacres and pogroms and confiscations and expulsions to keep Jews in constant fear for their existence, which could be extinguished by any crazy rumor and mass hysteria caused by wars and natural and economic calamities.

I could offer a similar history of how Christians—some of them—learned tolerance the hard way.  I have said nothing here about why Muslims who for centuries lived peacefully with Jews and Christians in Palestine and the Levant may now indeed want to murder them—perhaps they just started reading the Qu’ran?  That is an issue I could take up in another post. But I hope this brief synopsis indicates why I have little patience with Maher/Harris-style arguments which separate holy texts from any historical context and shout “Look at what this says!” and ask “Why don’t we see Mormon suicide bombers?” or claim “Muslim terrorism has nothing to do with war and dispossession.”

More copypasta with no source link.  Why is that?  I suspect it's because the link is to a suspect source.  Or maybe you're trying to pass these words off as your own?  You know who completely disagrees with the author of the words you posted here?  The terrorists themselves.

(04-29-2017, 09:43 PM)Dill Wrote: 1. I agree that most Christian extremism is grounded in the Old Testament. But I think Leviticus is not the primary problem. Rather it is Exodus 20:3--"Thou shalt have no other gods before thee." This is the singular ground of intolerance in all three religions of the book, which had made all three more intolerant than other major religions like Buddhism or Hinduism.

I used Leviticus as an example, it's by no means the only applicable one.  While you have something close to a solid point here, why are the other two religions not engaging in the same behavior?  Or do we need to go back 2,000 to make another direct comparison? 

Quote:2. Jesus may not be like Joshua, a conquering warlord who routinely engaged in violence, but that way was not easily open to a carpenter's son.  And it not prevented some of his followers from becoming conquering warlords, etc. Another reason to pause before we suppose that religious behavior tracks invariably back to religious texts. We don't really know "Jesus." What we have are texts and a textual tradition stitched together hundreds of years after his existence. There are texts, like the Gospel of Thomas, which show a rather mean and vicious Jesus who uses his super powers to kill trees and birds and the like. But they were closed out of the canon most read today. Christians generally pick and choose what they want to believe from the Bible. At least the Gospels present people with programs like the Sermon on the Mount and lend them cultural authority. This I do regard as a positive. But it does little to explain the historical behavior of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

I've called out ala carte christians in the past.  I'll take buffet style monotheism over what we're getting from islam right now.  Disingenuous is better than violent.

[GMDino]

(04-30-2017, 01:10 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Boring, this has been endlessly addressed.

 

Quite.  Your disdain for all things that disagree with your otherwise perfect understanding of things gets rather boring.

(04-30-2017, 01:10 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Like you mentor you love to take things out of context or pretend they haven't been addressed.

The entire quote was used...with a link to the discussion you were responding to.  Nothing out of context.  Live with your words.

(04-30-2017, 01:10 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As for your inane question, yes, it matters.  When you copy/paste a response and try and pass it off as your own, that's a problem.  Maybe you don't have a problem with blatant plagiarism or don't care about people being disingenuous.  I suppose we can add this to your list of unpleasant character traits. 

Totally agree.  I believe in sourcing and links so persons can read for themselves even if it was copied word for word.

(We use to have a poster on the older boards who did that frequently.  Same guy who use to say "I didn't say that" if I remember correctly.)

However I also understand that some will completely ignore/blatantly disregard sources they don't agree with for reason like the ones you gave above.  Namely: You don't believe them. So I can understand why they may have forgotten or simply didn't provide a link.



Although, for the record, Dill did include the title of a book to which he was referring on some of his points.

Quote:I suppose we can add this to your list of unpleasant character traits. 

Indeed.

Have a GREAT day!

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(04-30-2017, 01:25 PM)GMDino Wrote:  

Quite.  Your disdain for all things that disagree with your otherwise perfect understanding of things gets rather boring.

No, I have disdain for you and Fred because you're dishonest and you dodge and avoid all points that you can't address.  I disagree with many other posters on several subjects without the rancor associated with you and your mentor.  I've said it before, you're the new TommyC/St. Lucie.  I view you the same way I view them.

Quote:The entire quote was used...with a link to the discussion you were responding to.  Nothing out of context.  Live with your words.

I do live with them and I'll reiterate my objection to a study I believe to be fatally flawed.  I explained this, you disagree with my assertion.  Great.  The fact that you want to believe it doesn't automatically nullify my concerns or points, it just means you disagree with me.

Quote:Totally agree.  I believe in sourcing and links so persons can read for themselves even if it was copied word for word.

Which explains your defending someone who isn't doing precisely that.  Your outrage is always predicated by the person, not the act.

Quote:(We use to have a poster on the older boards who did that frequently.  Same guy who use to say "I didn't say that" if I remember correctly.)

Who are you referring to?

Quote:However I also understand that some will completely ignore/blatantly disregard sources they don't agree with for reason like the ones you gave above.  Namely: You don't believe them. So I can understand why they may have forgotten or simply didn't provide a link.

Of course.  Is your assertion that posting a source makes that source unimpeachable?  Especially when the source is a study, not an established fact.  If I source scientific proof that the Earth revolves around the Sun I'd expect little to no dissension.  If I post a link to a survey, you know, like one about muslim attitudes in the UK, I'd expect some questions or disagreements as to the findings of the survey.  Just like you did, hypocritically.

Quote:Although, for the record, Dill did include the title of a book to which he was referring on some of his points.

Derp, as a reference for further study on the topic.

Quote:Indeed.

Have a GREAT day!

You keep making zero points and posting gifs.  Every court needs its jester. 

[Dill]

(04-30-2017, 01:22 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You have issues with his "arrogance" and "lack of knowledge" but can't address the points you disagree with?

Oh man, do you know how badly your damaging your argument with this point?  Essentially you're comparing the behavior of many muslims today to jews from 2,000 years ago.  2,000 years ago, when slavery was the norm, wholesale slaughter and subjugation were acceptable.  So, do we need to wait a further 2,000 years for muslims to stop blowing themselves up, treating women like chattel, raping and disfiguring women and executing homosexuals? 

I appreciate your copy pasting this for us but I've addressed why it actually damages the point your trying to make.

More copypasta with no source link.  Why is that?  I suspect it's because the link is to a suspect source.  Or maybe you're trying to pass these words off as your own?  You know who completely disagrees with the author of the words you posted here?  The terrorists themselves.

I am addressing Harris' points by showing how religious beliefs are dependent upon social and historical context. What you call "copypasta" demonstrates the kind of knowledge he lacks.

You asked why Jews had been so well behaved over the last one thousand years. I explained to you that they were rather fanatical and an administrative problem for the Romans when they had their own state. But when parceled out into communities where they were the minority, their behavior eventually changed. Dependent upon the toleration of others for survival, they became more tolerant themselves. I alluded to a similar process which occurred among European Christians.  

Nothing in your response indicates you understood this point, and how it related to Abramhic religions in general. You might have asked whether Muslims have responded similarly to Jews and Christians when in the minority and dependent upon the tolerance of others.  Instead you speak of "waiting" for Islam to change, as if my point had something to do with time or developments wholly internal to a religious tradition. Bill Maher frequently dismisses historical comparisons demanding to know "why they aren't doing it now?" Once you had similarly dismissed my argument before you actually read it, you thought historical examples which secure my point only made it worse. Ok to go back a thousand years to make your point, but not two thousand to make mine. Cut off point decided by whom?

And you continue to treat Islam as a monolith, defined by behaviors which have emerged comparatively recently among fringe groups.
"The terrorists themselves" disagree with me, you claim--like that's not a good thing.

Then all the talk of "copypasta" and suspect sources. I assume everyone knows of the Crusades, Russian Pogroms, and the Holocaust. But you needed links? I provided two to  Kito's War because I doubted many had heard of it.  I have a hard copy of Josephus' The Jewish War. It is probably online though. It would be odd for someone to make up stuff about the first Jewish war and then attribute it to Josephus; I had already spent enough time on that post and so didn't look for a link. But if you don't trust something  I can probably get you a link.

Finally, you find it "blatantly obvious" that my own words are not my own, yet can't seem to specify any ground of suspicion.  Lot's of history there? Long post? I made up the claim that 1st Crusade began with the massacre of Jews? I didn't link to a Youtube video and say "what this guy says is what I think"? What? The answer is--nothing. Wherever would one find a "suspect source" with all the ready made, synthesized elements of ancient, medieval and modern history to respond to your post?

So the accusation remains an impression; and something you apparently need to believe.   At the risk of again spinning off on a side issue, I 'll ask--Why is denial of my authorship so important to you? 

[Dill]

(04-30-2017, 12:54 PM)GMDino Wrote:

Would it matter?

LOL, you know, I had the same Deja vu.

Normally once you explain that a critique of some statistician's sample is no critique if the critic cannot even specify what was sampled and how, you can at least get the critic to take a closer look, maybe even provide the required specification, or grant he has made an error. 

But "I've already addressed that" is total fail as a response. It could deflect further inquiry, though, if keeping some desired belief unchallenged is the goal. 

[GMDino]

(05-01-2017, 04:15 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL, you know, I had the same Deja vu.

Normally once you explain that a critique of some statistician's sample is no critique if the critic cannot even specify what was sampled and how, you can at least get the critic to take a closer look, maybe even provide the required specification, or grant he has made an error. 

But "I've already addressed that"  is total fail as a response. It could deflect further inquiry, though, if keeping some desired belief unchallenged is the goal. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-01-2017, 04:15 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL, you know, I had the same Deja vu.

Sorry to interrupt your make out session.  I suppose when you have no answers the best course of action is to engage in a self congratulatory circle J. 

Quote:Normally once you explain that a critique of some statistician's sample is no critique if the critic cannot even specify what was sampled and how, you can at least get the critic to take a closer look, maybe even provide the required specification, or grant he has made an error. 

The issues was specifically addressed.  I'll reiterate what I said to GMDabo, since apparently you need person specific points.  I explained my issue with the methodology, you disagree with my assertion.  No problem, you certainly have that right.  Why you and your parrot can't let it go is a bit odd, but to each their own.

Quote:But "I've already addressed that"  is total fail as a response. It could deflect further inquiry, though, if keeping some desired belief unchallenged is the goal. 

Or it could be the response of someone who gets tired of endlessly repeating themselves to posters determined to ignore points made.  Your desperation in this thread is palpable.  You're not even trying to address anything now.  I suppose getting busted plagiarizing and not citing your sources took the fun out of it for you?

(05-01-2017, 10:15 AM)GMDino Wrote:

Lord jpg unwittingly makes his little buddy look bad.  Like I said above, your outrage is always predicated on the person committing the act, never the act itself.  Inconsistent morality is a very unappealing character trait.  

[GMDino]

(05-01-2017, 11:39 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Sorry to interrupt your make out session.  I suppose when you have no answers the best course of action is to engage in a self congratulatory circle J. 



The issues was specifically addressed.  I'll reiterate what I said to GMDabo, since apparently you need person specific points.  I explained my issue with the methodology, you disagree with my assertion.  No problem, you certainly have that right.  Why you and your parrot can't let it go is a bit odd, but to each their own.


Or it could be the response of someone who gets tired of endlessly repeating themselves to posters determined to ignore points made.  Your desperation in this thread is palpable.  You're not even trying to address anything now.  I suppose getting busted plagiarizing and not citing your sources took the fun out of it for you?


Lord jpg unwittingly makes his little buddy look bad.  Like I said above, your outrage is always predicated on the person committing the act, never the act itself.  Inconsistent morality is a very unappealing character trait.  

[Dill]

(05-01-2017, 11:39 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Or it could be the response of someone who gets tired of endlessly repeating themselves to posters determined to ignore points made.  Your desperation in this thread is palpable.  You're not even trying to address anything now.  I suppose getting busted plagiarizing and not citing your sources took the fun out of it for you?

You claim the stats I offered on gun ownership are flawed because of sample size. So what is the sample size of the stats on gun ownership? So far you have not answered. You cannot demonstrate that you know how these stats were calculated. To ask that you do this is not to ignore your point. It is to ask for further specification, without which the point cannot stand. You brush off the request saying you have "already addressed" the point.  Sometimes you deflect the request by saying it is "boring" to repeat your point. Other times you say that we can agree to disagree, as if there were no means of logically and factually deciding the issue.  Your impression vs my impression. 

Ok, so you don't know. I would have let it go, despite all the puffery about how you know stats and I don't.

But here we are again.

Here is the pattern: 1) You challenge someone to support a claim. 2) The person responds with a substantive argument, logical and supported argument.  3) You launch into denial, making unsupported assertions about one or more points in that argument, often just quips. (Verbal abuse regarding others' character is not "support.") 4) When a quip/assertion is challenged as unsupported, you say you have "already addressed the issue," as if mere assertion does the job. 5) When it is pointed out that you most certainly have not addressed the issue, you insist you have, and repetition is "boring."  Sometimes, as in your post #150 above, you assert someone's point is wrong, then proceed as if the matter is now settled on your say so, without staying to hear objections. You have "already addressed" it. Here we are on another thread now, and already up to point 3.  Hence the Deja vu.

Accusing someone of plagiarism you cannot even specify--again grounding your entire claim on an "impression"-- is desperate. Just deflection.

As is the claim that, after four substantive posts on the issue of Islam in contemporary politics, I "have no answers" and am "not even trying to address anything now" because of a side response to Dino, not you.  My posts are still there. And I have explained what you have not understood.

Tired of "repeating yourself"? Break the pattern.  Establish premises (not private impressions), then induct or deduct conclusions from them. Use those conclusions to build your next point.  Respond to questions about factual accuracy and logical consistency without deflection and verbal abuse. Don't throw up a flailing barrage of negative quips. Avoid idle reporting of your feelings and speculation about who else agrees with you.  No more "copypasta" smoke screens. Get back on the issues and the arguments which have been laid out. Do you see Masterp's response in post #159 below? Can you post something sustained, on that level?
 

[masterpanthera_t]

(04-29-2017, 11:29 PM)Dill Wrote: You raise a number of valid points here Masterp.

Your concern about letting people in the country who might impact our "cultural ethos", however, takes us in a different, perhaps anti-pluralist direction. Most would agree that we should not let someone in the country who wants to kill Christians or Jews. What is troubling now is the tendency to ascribe such intent to Muslims in general--to enough, at least, so that adherence to the religion becomes the primary criterion for profiling. That seems to me the purpose of the recent flood of information purporting to explain what Islam and Sharia "really" are, and aligning Medieval texts with the actions of some dispossessed and/or psychically wounded actors in the present. 

 The lyric does not say, "You didn't vet me properly and a percentage of us are dangerous." The message is that all we need to know about a snake is that it is a snake. The poem is a re-purposed lyric from "leftist" social activist Oscar Brown, who  adapted it from an Aesop fable.

Hatred doesn't always lead to genocide. It exists in every country, but the haters are usually to small in number or too far from the machinery of state to do any damage. Insecurity and eloquence can expand their numbers, control of the state their power.This is to say that snakes are not really our problem right now. But people peddling snake oil are.

Limiting the "variety" of people allowed in the country is by definition anti-pluralist.  I don't feel anti-pluralism by definition is wrong, however, as you yourself provided a counter example (We certainly aren't going to welcome those who would kill Christians or Jews for the sake of their beliefs, which by the strictest definition of the word is anti-pluralist, i.e. we're not sympathetic to the values of those who would violate our values of "religious freedom").  The question here is, what is the right degree of vetting those we allow to enter into the U.S.  Between the extremes of no one from a certain religion  and everyone from everywhere, lies the spectrum.  The problem I believe is that to reach the right balance we must be a bit more open to using "facts"/surveys (facts here in quotes to really mean some defensible reasoning/interpretation obtained from facts or studies, not the actual data itself) to understand any population's "fit" for our cultural fabric.  I'm sure you would agree that this will at least inform us either way on what would be the expectations when people with different values are allowed to enter.  And at the least provide a framework not only to clarify what exactly our values are, but to appreciate how we differ from other regions of the world, and how our immigration policies reflect how we strengthen the framework of our own values and to inform our population why people whom we've allowed to immigrate here, are actually a reflection of those policies.  And to get here, I think one of the things we must understand better is why certain populations of Muslims in Western Europe hold certain views that are at least on the surface,  antithetical to the core values  of those nations.  This would definitely include a thorough analysis on whether such "surveys" were actually conducted properly and without skews etc.   I feel like you've actually come around to my point in the first place.  What I'm calling for is a detailed discussion which would also educate some of the less educated views in the populace and hopefully provide a defensible reasoning for whatever policy results from such an endeavor.  Now if we can arrive at the factors which would prime someone to hold views which we find are not conducive to our core values, we can create policies which have the right level of scope, i.e. I'm not doing surgery with an ax, but a scalpel.  Maybe we find out we don't even need surgery in the first place, and now our population is aware.  

Edit: I will make this completely clear. The above is in no way meant as a defense of any recent EO's by a certain someone. This is my way of explaining my view. There may be some overlap with recent news which is somewhat coincidental. It is to point out that hypothetically questioning some of our policies in a certain issue can be done with certain intents which may be different the perceived intent of bigotry.

[Dill]

(04-30-2017, 01:25 PM)GMDino Wrote:  
Totally agree.  I believe in sourcing and links so persons can read for themselves even if it was copied word for word.

However I also understand that some will completely ignore/blatantly disregard sources they don't agree with for reason like the ones you gave above.  Namely: You don't believe them. So I can understand why they may have forgotten or simply didn't provide a link.

Although, for the record, Dill did include the title of a book to which he was referring on some of his points.

Just to be clear here, my post included three links and three books.  But the argument and words were my own, synthesized from what I assumed was general knowledge (outside of the discussion of the two Roman-Jewish wars.)  Not a single line of "copypasta" from anywhere. 
And I don't feel like posting a link every time I mention the Crusades or the Holocaust, to prove I am not making it up.