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Ben Aflac is a moron
Topic Started: Oct 6 2014, 07:04 PM (2,438 Views)
HugeMMAFan
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Cbear
Oct 29 2014, 04:17 AM
The contingent I see is the "I want money" crowd. They own the c-store market and are the biggest capitalists in the nation. That's fine. work hard, make money. But to say they want Sharia law hammered down on this? That will kill that capitalist money train dead. So do you want money or Sharia law?
Well, what I said about why people immigrate has little to do with what they believe in their religion. Weird as this may sound, people say things in polls when they believe they can get away with it. It's anonymous, no one's going to know. They might not be necessarily lying about it, but if you ask them to put their beliefs into action, some of them might be less willing than they might say they are.

When you got nothing to lose, life means nothing, but when you have something to lose (your own business, family, a stable life), well, not a lot of those people are standing in line to do anything. Most immigrants that come into nation? They really care about two things first and foremost: their family, and themselves. Good news is, they aren't likely to do anything bad if their needs are met. Bad news is, they aren't likely to do anything for anyone else that means some substantial loss for themselves.
Edited by HugeMMAFan, Oct 29 2014, 01:08 PM.
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Jeff Mondo
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split decision
Oct 27 2014, 04:48 PM
BDW
Oct 27 2014, 04:44 PM
The Bible calls for people to take up against non believers too.

Just sayin'

It does, but it's extremist Muslims who are acting on the call to arms, not the Christians (well, in much, much smaller numbers these days anyway).


Maybe not as small as you think.

Many of the unstable nations in Africa are predominately Christian, including the ones that have seen some pretty horrific mass-killings in recent times. The Central African Republic continues to have Christian militant groups causing havoc, often targeting Muslims in particular. Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, who recruited thousands of child soldiers? Christian. Dude wanted to establish a theocracy based on the Ten Commandments.

Among other contemporary examples. We simply don't hear about them too often because they have little impact on the Western world.

Religious faith is only a minor contributor to these atrocities compared to the larger factors: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, youth etc.

After all, there's millions of Muslims who wouldn't harm a fly sitting in places like China, Indonesia, Malaysia etc.
Edited by Jeff Mondo, Oct 29 2014, 02:32 PM.
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spasgur
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Well all of that happens in Africa and thus doesn't count.
Edited by spasgur, Oct 29 2014, 02:22 PM.
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19nate79

Or it means that they do support it and if somebody was trying to make it the law they wouldn't be against it, which is just as bad. Black people wouldn't be voting if we all had that fucking opinion.

response was to huge mma
Edited by 19nate79, Oct 29 2014, 03:47 PM.
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split decision
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Porn savant
Jeff Mondo
Oct 29 2014, 02:17 PM
Religious faith is only a minor contributor to these atrocities compared to the larger factors: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, youth etc.


I wouldn't quite relegate religion to "minor" in being a motivator, but the other factors you mention (and HugeMMAFan has been mentioning) are also very significant. Those factors also influence how some people pervert religion for political purposes. Many of these terrorist groups are as politically motivated -- or even more so -- than they are moved to action by religion. The two can become awfully intertwined.

Again, I keep making this point but there were long periods in history when Muslims lived a generally peaceful coexistence with people of other faiths (Zachary Karabell's book explains this). Muslim societies were once considered advanced and forward-thinking. It was an Islamic mathematician who devised algorithms, for instance.

The Quran was the same back then, it had war-like passages and acts of violence that were condoned. Yet Islamic adherents didn't feel compelled to act. Why was that? Undoubtedly because of socio-economic factors.

One other point, let's not forget the role mental illness plays in some cases as well. When a guy goes wacko in many parts of the world and shoots others and then himself, it's often attributed to that guy being crazy. When someone decides to kill others and/or themselves in the Middle East of if it happens in the U.S. or Canada and it involves a Muslim, it's automatically assumed that religion was the primary reason that they became homicidal. This only accounts for a fraction of cases but it's similar to kids thought to have fetal alcohol syndrome when they come from lower-class backgrounds but kids with the same sort of behavior are assumed to have attention deficit disorder when they come from a privileged background because there's no way a rich woman would have been drinking during pregnancy, right???



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19nate79

Jeff Mondo
Oct 29 2014, 02:17 PM
split decision
Oct 27 2014, 04:48 PM
BDW
Oct 27 2014, 04:44 PM
The Bible calls for people to take up against non believers too.

Just sayin'

It does, but it's extremist Muslims who are acting on the call to arms, not the Christians (well, in much, much smaller numbers these days anyway).


Maybe not as small as you think.

Many of the unstable nations in Africa are predominately Christian, including the ones that have seen some pretty horrific mass-killings in recent times. The Central African Republic continues to have Christian militant groups causing havoc, often targeting Muslims in particular. Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, who recruited thousands of child soldiers? Christian. Dude wanted to establish a theocracy based on the Ten Commandments.

Among other contemporary examples. We simply don't hear about them too often because they have little impact on the Western world.

Religious faith is only a minor contributor to these atrocities compared to the larger factors: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, youth etc.

After all, there's millions of Muslims who wouldn't harm a fly sitting in places like China, Indonesia, Malaysia etc.
And we can easily look at those groups and see that that is in fact a very very small minority
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19nate79

split decision
Oct 29 2014, 03:47 PM
Jeff Mondo
Oct 29 2014, 02:17 PM
Religious faith is only a minor contributor to these atrocities compared to the larger factors: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, youth etc.


I wouldn't quite relegate religion to "minor" in being a motivator, but the other factors you mention (and HugeMMAFan has been mentioning) are also very significant. Those factors also influence how some people pervert religion for political purposes. Many of these terrorist groups are as politically motivated -- or even more so -- than they are moved to action by religion. The two can become awfully intertwined.

Again, I keep making this point but there were long periods in history when Muslims lived a generally peaceful coexistence with people of other faiths (Zachary Karabell's book explains this). Muslim societies were once considered advanced and forward-thinking. It was an Islamic mathematician who devised algorithms, for instance.

The Quran was the same back then, it had war-like passages and acts of violence that were condoned. Yet Islamic adherents didn't feel compelled to act. Why was that? Undoubtedly because of socio-economic factors.

One other point, let's not forget the role mental illness plays in some cases as well. When a guy goes wacko in many parts of the world and shoots others and then himself, it's often attributed to that guy being crazy. When someone decides to kill others and/or themselves in the Middle East of if it happens in the U.S. or Canada and it involves a Muslim, it's automatically assumed that religion was the primary reason that they became homicidal. This only accounts for a fraction of cases but it's similar to kids thought to have fetal alcohol syndrome when they come from lower-class backgrounds but kids with the same sort of behavior are assumed to have attention deficit disorder when they come from a privileged background because there's no way a rich woman would have been drinking during pregnancy, right???



That's not exactly correct. They were never peaceful. The hey may have been very slightly more advanced in the dark ages but hasn't really been true since. The same perhaps as when Christians were burning witches. Ask an Armenian about that peaceful hand they were peacefully dealt by turkey. Not only that but who gives a shit about 500 ad when they had a couple good math advancements? Is it 500 ad or 1500 years later? The Ottoman empire wasn't a nice place to live in.
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fightfan10
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don't know what you're talking about, they sat around all day with their feet up.
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Cbear
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We wouldnt be having any of these discussions if the violence of Islam didnt exist. Nobody would be creating threads saying "hey lets talk about Jesus, Vishnu and Odin". It simply wouldnt even come up. But time and again, violence is committed in the name of Islam so its a hot point.
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19nate79

Cbear
Oct 29 2014, 07:21 PM
We wouldnt be having any of these discussions if the violence of Islam didnt exist. Nobody would be creating threads saying "hey lets talk about Jesus, Vishnu and Odin". It simply wouldnt even come up. But time and again, violence is committed in the name of Islam so its a hot point.
refine that a little bit, it happens in islam too much in today's world. possibly more than the rest of the world combined.
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Tallica
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Bill Maher responds to racist/biggot accusations and the people protesting his appearance at the Berkeley commencement ceremony.

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Jeff Mondo
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split decision
Oct 29 2014, 03:47 PM
Jeff Mondo
Oct 29 2014, 02:17 PM
Religious faith is only a minor contributor to these atrocities compared to the larger factors: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, youth etc.


I wouldn't quite relegate religion to "minor" in being a motivator, but the other factors you mention (and HugeMMAFan has been mentioning) are also very significant. Those factors also influence how some people pervert religion for political purposes. Many of these terrorist groups are as politically motivated -- or even more so -- than they are moved to action by religion. The two can become awfully intertwined.

Again, I keep making this point but there were long periods in history when Muslims lived a generally peaceful coexistence with people of other faiths (Zachary Karabell's book explains this). Muslim societies were once considered advanced and forward-thinking. It was an Islamic mathematician who devised algorithms, for instance.

The Quran was the same back then, it had war-like passages and acts of violence that were condoned. Yet Islamic adherents didn't feel compelled to act. Why was that? Undoubtedly because of socio-economic factors.

One other point, let's not forget the role mental illness plays in some cases as well. When a guy goes wacko in many parts of the world and shoots others and then himself, it's often attributed to that guy being crazy. When someone decides to kill others and/or themselves in the Middle East of if it happens in the U.S. or Canada and it involves a Muslim, it's automatically assumed that religion was the primary reason that they became homicidal. This only accounts for a fraction of cases but it's similar to kids thought to have fetal alcohol syndrome when they come from lower-class backgrounds but kids with the same sort of behavior are assumed to have attention deficit disorder when they come from a privileged background because there's no way a rich woman would have been drinking during pregnancy, right???



Sorry about the late responses, I've had very little time to post anything aside from short little quips on here the last two days.

Anyways, the reason that I list religious beliefs as "minor" is because in the vast majority of cases behind religious-induced violence, if you took out the religious influence, those atrocities still would have happened. While there are enough nutjobs out there who act purely by blind and perverted spiritual faith, the widespread carnage that you see in places like Africa and the Middle East happens more so because of the poverty, lack of education, and jobless youth. If those countries were primarily atheist, you'd still be seeing the horrors that we do in the name of religion.

It's like the Crusades; the Christian goal of reclaiming the Holy Land was merely the Church's method to galvanize Europe. What they truly wanted was the wealth and resources lying in the Middle East. Religion was the excuse - other factors were the reason
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split decision
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^^^ Man's inhumanity to man is well documented, for sure. Much of it driven by desperation, greed, a lust for power, and on and on. There are those who like to chalk it up to Islam today.

Religion is but one reason.

EDIT: I largely agree with you!
Edited by split decision, Nov 1 2014, 01:15 PM.
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Jeff Mondo
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19nate79
Oct 29 2014, 03:47 PM
Jeff Mondo
Oct 29 2014, 02:17 PM
split decision
Oct 27 2014, 04:48 PM
BDW
Oct 27 2014, 04:44 PM
The Bible calls for people to take up against non believers too.

Just sayin'

It does, but it's extremist Muslims who are acting on the call to arms, not the Christians (well, in much, much smaller numbers these days anyway).


Maybe not as small as you think.

Many of the unstable nations in Africa are predominately Christian, including the ones that have seen some pretty horrific mass-killings in recent times. The Central African Republic continues to have Christian militant groups causing havoc, often targeting Muslims in particular. Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, who recruited thousands of child soldiers? Christian. Dude wanted to establish a theocracy based on the Ten Commandments.

Among other contemporary examples. We simply don't hear about them too often because they have little impact on the Western world.

Religious faith is only a minor contributor to these atrocities compared to the larger factors: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, youth etc.

After all, there's millions of Muslims who wouldn't harm a fly sitting in places like China, Indonesia, Malaysia etc.
And we can easily look at those groups and see that that is in fact a very very small minority
I hope you're not trying to say that Muslims in East Asia are a "very, very small minority", much less peaceful Muslims worldwide.

The Muslims in Southeast Asia alone account for somewhere around 40% of the global Muslim population. That doesn't include places like Nepal, India, China, Japan, all of which have sizable, and nonviolent, Muslim populations on their own. Altogether, East Asia contains somewhere around 60% of the global Muslim population.

Arab nations only account for about 20-25% of the Islam community around the world.

So, even if every last Muslim in the Arab world is violent (and they're not, just look at the UAE), they'd actually be the minority against other Muslim populations across the planet.

EDIT -

One more tidbit

Quote:
 

The hey may have been very slightly more advanced in the dark ages but hasn't really been true since.


Much of what the West knows about science and math today we can thank to the Middle East. The Crusades pulled Europe out of the Dark Ages because of the boundless knowledge that Europeans gleaned from the Middle East. The Arab nations were probably the most advanced of any in the world at that point in history. They were back then what the Western world is today, and even that comparison doesn't do complete justice to the Arab world of then.
Edited by Jeff Mondo, Nov 1 2014, 01:40 PM.
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Jeff Mondo
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Cbear
Oct 29 2014, 07:21 PM
We wouldnt be having any of these discussions if the violence of Islam didnt exist. Nobody would be creating threads saying "hey lets talk about Jesus, Vishnu and Odin". It simply wouldnt even come up. But time and again, violence is committed in the name of Islam so its a hot point.
Not much more than violence is done in the name of Christianity, but you don't see it plastering our news outlets.

We just don't hear about it because Christian violence usually doesn't target the Western world, whereas the violent Islam community hailing from the Middle East has a vendetta against Western society.
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