The Political Thread

[Hawkmumbler]

I've been trying to do some research on the Palestine conflict and i'm finding certain basic aspect hard to wrap my head around.

First off, Muslim citizens claim it's not a war on Jew's but on Zionists. OK, I get that. But then how come many non-extremist Jew's have suffered as a result of the debacle? Jew's then claim it's a war on radicalized Islam, but even more Muslim bystanders have been harmed. Source after source one side is pointing the finger at the other and it appears to just be one giant stalemate.

[NapalmKev]

I've been trying to do some research on the Palestine confIt's t and i'm finding certain basic aspect hard to wrap my head around.

First off, Muslim citizens claim it's not a war on Jew's but on Zionists. OK, I get that. But then how come many non-extremist Jew's have suffered as a result of the debacle? Jew's then claim it's a war on radicalized Islam, but even more Muslim bystanders have been harmed. Source after source one side is pointing the finger at the other and it appears to just be one giant stalemate.

Humans + Religion = Nonsense! If any of them truly believed their religion then they wouldn't blow up Hospitals, Schools and Children.

It's just People being Pricks about their beliefs, and the fact that we're now in the Twenty-First and this Shite still goes on is a bit depressing.

Cheers

[The Legendary Shark]

Indeed. I'm beginning to think religion is a mental disorder.

[Professor Bear]

Religion is just the tool, not the cause.  Rich Saudis bankroll the jihads of Muslim radicals which leads to dead Jews and martyred Muslims - win/win for the money men and fuck the poor as usual.

[Spikes]

This brightened up my day

[Richmond Clements]

Racist Nigel's meltdown live on TV last night was rather fun.
I genuinely believe there is not a single thing he doesn't blame brown people for.

[locustsofdeath!]

Humans + Religion = Nonsense! If any of them truly believed their religion then they wouldn't blow up Hospitals, Schools and Children.

I dislike statements like this (and Shark's ultra-dumb follow up). While not religious myself, I know many religious people who do very good things in the name of religion. My former fiancé, a very good-hearted girl, has gone to Africa three times with her church to build schools for African children. I have a good friend from New York who was involved in gangs and drugs who used God and religion as a source of strength to be build his life; he now ministers at a local church and runs a soup kitchen - on his own dime - for homeless people through his church.

Blanket statements like this - although I'm sure napalmkev didn't mean it this way - are reverse bigotry, no worse than saying "all black people are criminals" or whatever. But it's fashionable to bash religion so no one jumps all over these types of comment right now.

[JamesC]

Humans + Religion = Nonsense! If any of them truly believed their religion then they wouldn't blow up Hospitals, Schools and Children.

Blanket statements like this - although I'm sure napalmkev didn't mean it this way - are reverse bigotry, no worse than saying "all black people are criminals" or whatever.

Are you quite sure these two things are equivalent?

I'm not.

[NapalmKev]

Humans + Religion = Nonsense! If any of them truly believed their religion then they wouldn't blow up Hospitals, Schools and Children.

I dislike statements like this (and Shark's ultra-dumb follow up). While not religious myself, I know many religious people who do very good things in the name of religion. My former fiancé, a very good-hearted girl, has gone to Africa three times with her church to build schools for African children. I have a good friend from New York who was involved in gangs and drugs who used God and religion as a source of strength to be build his life; he now ministers at a local church and runs a soup kitchen - on his own dime - for homeless people through his church.

Blanket statements like this - although I'm sure napalmkev didn't mean it this way - are reverse bigotry, no worse than saying "all black people are criminals" or whatever. But it's fashionable to bash religion so no one jumps all over these types of comment right now.

You're correct, I didn't mean all followers of Religion. I was referring directly to the Israeli/Palestine conflict that Hawkmonger mentioned previously. If that wasn't clear then I apologise for the lack of context in the original statement.

Cheers

[locustsofdeath!]

The way I read it, yes. I could be wrong about kev's intention, which is why I mentioned that.

Or maybe it was Shark's comment that made it seem worse, I'm not sure.

In any case, I keep telling myself not to come back to this thread. I really need to adhere to that. I don't think I've read as many ridiculous posts in all my other internet reading in all my life as I have read right here.

[Theblazeuk]

It's pretty clear you're not talking about all members of religion, just the ones who "blow up hospitals, schools and children."

In no way is religion equivalent to race.

[Hawkmumbler]

I dislike the basic foundations of religious ideology. The belief in a deity and that worshiping said daity somehow allow's you to get away with all kinds if shit. Also the fact that you have to ignore so much racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic (the list can go on) within the Bible, Qu'ran, and others before you can even have the cheek to claim it's the ethos on how you live your life that I honestly think many self proclaimed people of peace are just bigots deep down.

That and my experience with religious institutens has NEVER been positive. We are the sum of our experiences, and frankly from my time in a Christian school to having a tour of a local Mosque i've never been impressed with what i've found. So yes, I will claim that at their core most religious structures are rotten, and calling out bullshit like that is not equivical to cassual racism.

[Jim_Campbell]

That and my experience with religious institutens has NEVER been positive.

And if your personal interactions with black people had been overwhelmingly negative, would it be OK to make broad brush generalisations about them, too?

Jim

[JamesC]

That and my experience with religious institutens has NEVER been positive.

And if your personal interactions with black people had been overwhelmingly negative, would it be OK to make broad brush generalisations about them, too?

Jim

I think this is where the equivalency argument falls down.
There are basic tenets that the religious organisations Hawkmonger describes subscribe to. If the bad experiences Hawkmonger has had are a direct result of behaviour born out of those tenets then it seems reasonable (or at least understandable) that he would decry all followers as broadly similar in terms of certain behaviours.
I think it's an impossible argument to claim that all black people subscribe to some core set of behaviours even if you've only had bad personal experiences with black people.
Or to put it more simply, there's a rule book for being a Christian, there isn't a rule book for being a black person (discounting Mr T's seminal 'Rules for Fools', obviously).

[Hawkmumbler]

What JamesC is more or less what I was trying to say in my far than perfect OP, Jim. Black individuals are, globally, a hodge podge of various cultural attitudes. Christianity, for an opposite example, I have experienced in the UK, Northern Ireland, France, Italy, The US (though only in New York and Florida, I will admit), South Africa and Turkey and it's all more or less the same cultural attitude. And I wasn't taken by the zealous attitude of it all.