Point, counterPoint

Post #9,673 by brettj 9/19/01 1:29:51 AM Reply	Point, counterPoint Good advice. Notice my emphasis on "world" help. If anything, this evil act has made us aware that we are indeed a global village.
Post #9,678 by dmarker2 9/19/01 2:28:58 AM Reply	Re: Guess you know of 8 aid workers on trial 4 lives in ... Afghanistan. These people are accused of attempting to convert muslims to Chistianity. Most Islamic run countries view this very seriously. These people were young aid workers from Christian aid organisations there to help but it seems they also intended to preach. From what I have seen & read some were doing so - had stacks of Afghan language bibles etc:. They could receive death penalty under Islamic law. If they were doing this they are nothing but the worst kind of naive idiots who will now drag in lots of govts & lawyers etc: etc: to get them out of the mess they created. They are in the way of any attempts the US may want to undertake in pusuance of the anti-terrorist actions. They are in effect hostages except that the crime they are accused of is serious. An unfortunate side aspect of this is that it is mostly Christian orgs that dispense western aid. So how do we give aid without putting idiots at risk or harming national interests. Doug Marker
Post #9,689 by brettj 9/19/01 9:54:38 AM Reply	Aid workers don't have to preach religion ... ... but I get your point. I guess freedom of religion is not something allowed in the Islam faith? It gives them the right to kill others that don't agree with their view?! What kind of religion is that? What kind of mentality/wisdom is that? I hope it's only the viewpoint of the crazed fanatics.
Post #9,692 by dmarker2 9/19/01 10:02:17 AM Reply	Re: Aid workers don't have to preach religion ... I don't even pretend to understand that part of Islam but as a kid brought up by one of the tough christian religions I know what would have happened to a muslim who came into our parish & tried to convert our people to Islam (plus I can guess what would have happened to anyone who converted - to be shoore, to be shoore, not a dowt in mee mynd). Humour aside. One of the difficult things in life is to accept that what we think is normal isn't always that way to others. Lets not use this topic to start an Islam bashing session, there really are extreme's in most religions and at different places and times each can do strange and wierd things to others. Cheers Doug
Post #9,729 by Ashton 9/19/01 4:18:20 PM Reply	Umm until quiterecently.. The Crusades, the Salem witch trials, the Inquisition, the Heresy trials - the dunkings, burnings, prolonged tortures (and lascivious attentions to young girls, of old men) = armed er 'Crusades' by armies of the er 'Righteous'. Organized religion - is an organization of men, having little to do with the subtleties of metaphysical wonderings or exact dogma (selected from the smorg\ufffdsbord available). Organized religion and its 'Beliefs' is THE Problem, in the world, through 2001. And through today: don't forget the silence from 'our' religious establishment re our home-grown Terrorists with regular Tee Vee hate propaganda, extending over decades. (Slavery here.. women not voting til 1920.. yada yada) Please explain any slight differences between 'them' and 'us'. Ashton
Post #9,738 by Fearless Freep 9/19/01 5:17:15 PM Reply	Re: Umm until quiterecently.. The Crusades, Land grab masquerading as religion. More mid-Eastern Christians killed than any other group the Inquisition Spanish politics. Killings were politically motivated and not discrimated between religions don't forget the silence from 'our' religious establishment re our home-grown Terrorists with regular Tee Vee hate propaganda, extending over decades. Pay attention. There are a fair number of Christian's denouncing most Televangelists. But like in the mideast, the radicals and fanatics get all the press time and those within their religion who criticize then don't get as much audience. Quit regurgigating the same tired old myths Jay O'Connor "Going places unmapped to do things unplanned to people unsuspecting"
Post #9,743 by Simon_Jester 9/19/01 5:46:56 PM Reply	Actually I must agree with Aston... There's lots of evidence of all religions not tolerating others beliefs... In addition to the ones he named (off the top of my head) - Puritans - early America Mormons - chased out to Utah Fact is - religions have (and do) chase out 'untolerable' beliefs.
Post #9,745 by Fearless Freep 9/19/01 5:50:37 PM Reply	yes, but... ..trotting out the same old cliches that have nothing to do with religious intolerance doesn't help anything Mormons - chased out to Utah That's a good one. The Mormons were not chased out of the east for religious reasons :) There was a lot of religious weirdness going on at that time and the Mormons were just another one in the mix. It was their criminal activities that got them sent packing Jay O'Connor "Going places unmapped to do things unplanned to people unsuspecting"
Post #9,748 by brettj 9/19/01 6:02:56 PM Reply	But his point about religious intolerance ... ... and twisting of religions to justify brutal and inhuman actions has been with us for a long, long time. The world now has a chance to take a stance on inhumanity. Those that decide that humanity is not important to them will suffer the consequences. Evil will be rooted out and destroyed, if necessary. The cancer has got to go or it will destroy the host.
Post #9,751 by Fearless Freep 9/19/01 6:12:00 PM Reply	Laughable The world now has a chance to take a stance on inhumanity. Those that decide that humanity is not important to them will suffer the consequences. Evil will be rooted out and destroyed, if necessary. The cancer has got to go or it will destroy the host. 10,000 years of human social behavior will be overturned in two weeks? If the Holocaust didn't scar people enough to change, this certainly won't affect us either Jay O'Connor "Going places unmapped to do things unplanned to people unsuspecting"
Post #9,754 by brettj 9/19/01 6:30:56 PM Reply	I take it you have no hope? You see no possibility for good to come out of this even though countries that hated each other a week ago are now talking? Without hope there is only despair. I'll keep my faith in humanity and keep hoping. Maybe that's foolish and laughable but there you have it.
Post #9,755 by Fearless Freep 9/19/01 6:44:17 PM Reply	shrug Maybe I have no hope I have no hope that human nature will chnage because of this. 10,000+ years of history don't provide much evidence of human wisdom ever increasing. You see no possibility for good to come out of this even though countries that hated each other a week ago are now talking? Who were our allies in WWII? Was not the Soviet Union in that group? Nations can be notoriously pragmatic and finicky about allegiences Jay O'Connor "Going places unmapped to do things unplanned to people unsuspecting"
Post #9,758 by brettj 9/19/01 7:25:54 PM Reply	We either grow up some day ... ... or our technology and hate will eliminate life as we know it. I'm hoping we have matured enough not to cause our own destruction. Are you familiar with the Drake Equation? Now is the time to show the world how mature the people of the world have become. And the U.S. has the chance to take the lead if we can show a bit of restraint and compassion.
Post #9,756 by Ashton 9/19/01 6:59:17 PM Reply	I'll agree on probable results, this time too - but Holocaust is a Red Herring. Hitler's scapegoating of the Jews was barely.. 'religious' - almost arbitrarily, they were the designated recipients of the frustration, poverty and hatred engendered by the Draconian terms of the WW-I surrender. Pure economics as in: "Look at these-smart-college-guys, owning all that property - selling out the Deutsche Volk - a Zionist plot! to take over the Vaterland" (misplaced my copy of MK, so this is just paraphrase). So back to the point, which is hardly mooted by 'The Holocaust': this time the action is alleged to derive from the heart of Religious Dogma\ufffd. Again - 'alleged'. And especially in 'Christian' Murica, there is woeful ignorance about most other religions everywhere - and 'Christians' are as divided as the balance of civilization about, Which GodsWord Is True(r). So yes - it IS (this time too) about economics, about ~ the entire Muslim world numbering among the poorest (save for a few OPEC places - where the wealth is divided even more absurdly than our mere 95/5, yet poor people live better there, too). But: the ignorance about Islam (and all others) brings focus on the religious basis, and not the underlying rationale. I maintain there is an opportunity here. But just a slim one. In the end, think we are much more apt to act precipitately than, patiently, cleverly: wisely. Maybe a litmus: will there be any lasting damage to the ongoing agenda of the Tee Vee preachers - following the excrescences of two of them - next (??) Has anyone learned anything new, about hate encapsulated in religious doggerel, wherever found ?? (and maybe about: extreme poverty ==> extreme response, in the face of manic wealth, flaunted) A.
Post #9,843 by marlowe 9/20/01 11:54:19 AM Reply	Human antisocial behavior... thrives in an atomosphere of terminal nonjudgementalism. Time for the West to regrow its backbone. And find that moral compass. Inthane's not completely wrong on details, after all. No one is absolutely sinless. It's just that our enemies are far far worse than us. Say, whatever happened to pre-modernism? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Post #9,852 by inthane-chan 9/20/01 12:47:25 PM Reply	Never made a judgement about our enemies... ...except that they are bad enough that they need excising from this world, before their cancer grows. We have a sickness as well, but I'm seriously hoping it's not terminal. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Post #9,764 by boxley 9/19/01 8:31:37 PM Reply	auto de fe against morranos? politikal? NOT!!! why did god give us a talleywhacker and a trigger finger if he didnt want us to use them? Randy Wayne White
Post #9,697 by Silverlock 9/19/01 10:18:34 AM Reply	Not quite "They could receive death penalty under Islamic law. " As I remember from previous news articles on this, the death penalty does not apply to foreigners/non-believers. But, it can be applied to natives who are found to have done the same thing or who actually do convert to a non-Islam faith. I do not have a link to back this up at the moment but I am positive that is what was originally reported. "Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." --Thomas Jefferson
Post #9,698 by Another Scott 9/19/01 10:27:33 AM Reply	I have the same recollection from NPR stories.

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