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Rigged Death Trap posted:Small aside, thats a baller rear end mug. It's also a souvenir sold to support a terrorstic, theocratic paramilitary
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Jul 8, 2015 20:03
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It boggles my mind that there are countries with some moderate modernity in TYOOL who still execute people for lack of belief in God & homosexuality.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:03
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Abner Cadaver II posted:How about the Army of God, the terrorist wing of the Christian "pro-life" movement? The difference between Army of God and Da'esh is so vast that it's a difference in kind, not degree.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:06
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TheImmigrant posted:The difference between Army of God and Da'esh is so vast that it's a difference in kind, not degree. How are they different in kind? They're both using violence to achieve political aims and justifying themselves with their piety.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:09
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Smudgie Buggler posted:Calm down. Nobody's saying Afghanis are savages. All you've done is knock down the false dichotomy I've bolded above. You're tilting at windmills, and nobody's taking the position you're getting flustered about. All anybody's saying is that your view of civil strife in Afghanistan throughout the 20th Century being solely (or even chiefly in all cases, because we're not talking about one big monolithic conflict here) because of a desire of the popular classes to extricate themselves from foreign rule (or rule perceived to be foreign-influenced) is simplistic and not at all the whole truth. You are ignoring the massive and well documented reaction religious institutions had to the threat to their psychological and political hegemony over the uneducated masses posed by efforts - indigenous and foreign - to modernise a pre-industrial society. I'm not making some huge sweeping statement about the entire history of Afghani civil strife, though? I was initially responding to ToxicAcme, who did indeed refer specifically and solely to the Soviet invasion, and who stated that the main reason Afghans fought so hard against the Soviet invaders specifically was just because they were tribal and hated modernization. That's why whenever I mentioned a conflict I went out of my way to say which conflict I was talking about and use specific details about those conflicts and time periods, unlike the array of people intent on making sweeping general statements about over a century and a half of warfare which stretched over several ruling dynasties and included at least four separate wars against Great Powers.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:13
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TheImmigrant posted:The difference between Army of God and Da'esh is so vast that it's a difference in kind, not degree. I'm pretty sure that what you are saying here is completely opposite of what the words kind and degree actually mean.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:13
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Rakosi posted:You're going to have to pick a better Christian example than the Westboro Baptist Church if you're trying to use one in comparison with ISIS to make a point that fundamental Christians are as dangerous as fundamental Muslims. quote:In the prelude to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush told Jacques Chirac that Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East: "This confrontation is willed by God," he told the French leader, "who wants us to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins." Chirac consulted a professor at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) to explain Bush's reference.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:18
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Abner Cadaver II posted:How are they different in kind? They're both using violence to achieve political aims and justifying themselves with their piety. Da'esh is a well-disciplined organization of thousands that holds and governs a significant amount of territory. The Army of God is a marginal group of a handful of individuals with a single issue, that might not even exist any more.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:19
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Main Paineframe posted:I'm not making some huge sweeping statement about the entire history of Afghani civil strife, though? I was initially responding to ToxicAcme, who did indeed refer specifically and solely to the Soviet invasion, and who stated that the main reason Afghans fought so hard against the Soviet invaders specifically was just because they were tribal and hated modernization. That's why whenever I mentioned a conflict I went out of my way to say which conflict I was talking about and use specific details about those conflicts and time periods, unlike the array of people intent on making sweeping general statements about over a century and a half of warfare which stretched over several ruling dynasties and included at least four separate wars against Great Powers. Yes, I think everyone understand what you're trying to say, your characterization of the conflict is completely wrong, even limited to specifically the Soviet conflict (which separating from the civil war that instigated that conflict is so analytically rear end backward that I can't think of an appropriate analog).
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Jul 8, 2015 20:19
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Jarmak posted:Yes, I think everyone understand what you're trying to say, your characterization of the conflict is completely wrong, even limited to specifically the Soviet conflict (which separating from the civil war that instigated that conflict is so analytically rear end backward that I can't think of an appropriate analog). Yes, yes, feel free to tell me more about how the strawman you've constructed, which has virtually nothing in common with anything I'm actually saying, is wrong. That's very interesting.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:24
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Abner Cadaver II posted:And that's what we (by which I meant everyone in this thread who isn't just raging about how bad religion is always forever) are arguing is wrong. "It's in the Qur'an so the most literal extreme interpretations of those specific passages are correct" is bad theology. You're just ignoring centuries of Islamic scholarship, which closely parallels Christian and Judaic scholarship in its increasingly humanist views, and taking the most violent extant sects and saying they're truly representative because they're the most violently repressive. You seem to be hesitating to argue against his actual point. Why don't you go into a little more detail about those years of gradual scholarship and what political direction they moved society in? Original early-medieval Islam was really, really awful in so many ways and unsuitable for running even a pre-modern empire, and all of that scholarship consisted of chipping away at literalism and (more to the point) narrow-minded, backwards looking cultural traditionalism that had piggybacked on the religion. The scripture of original Islamic texts is not the only 'problem' here - there are also the facts of the society which practiced it to consider. ISIS is not wrong when they claim that they are significantly closer in practice to 9th century or whatever Islam in the years immediately following Muhammad's life and reign. The primary two directions in which a religion moves as far as politics are concerned is intellectual/contemplative/introverted versus the practical, extroverted, activist brand. It isn't necessary to convince "Muslim allies" that all potential or historical forms of Islam are bad - but nobody who emphasizes the legalistic and political aspects of Islam and seeks the implementation of systems from 1000 years ago is ever going to be an ally. They are violent, politically speaking, and "evil" in the practical sense of seeking compromise with them being hopeless. Abner Cadaver II posted:My point is that political Christianity is far from neutered in this world, even if its influence is not equivalent to political Islam, and that the violence in the Middle East has much more to do with material than religious conditions. And yes I'm mostly blaming Western (and Soviet and even Ottoman) imperialism for it. If that is the case - if Islam and the cultural values with which it is inextricably associated in that part of the world did not meaningfully contribute to the current state of affairs - why are all of the other countries that have been exploited or warred upon by western (or non-western!) imperialists within the past couple of centuries not completely full of theocracies and violent religious death cults? These violent groups, I might add, have in the past few years shifted more to making attacks against targets with no real material/political significance (Charlie Hebdo and other cartoonists come to mind) for purely religious reasons.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:26
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TheImmigrant posted:Da'esh is a well-disciplined organization of thousands that holds and governs a significant amount of territory. The Army of God is a marginal group of a handful of individuals with a single issue, that might not even exist any more. That would be a difference in degree rather than in kind though?
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Jul 8, 2015 20:28
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Main Paineframe posted:Yes, yes, feel free to tell me more about how the strawman you've constructed, which has virtually nothing in common with anything I'm actually saying, is wrong. That's very interesting. Uh... what the gently caress? How in the hell is "your characterization" a strawman? I mean I didn't even restate your position or anything, what the gently caress about that statement are you even able to construe to your own brain as a strawman?
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Jul 8, 2015 20:30
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Abner Cadaver II posted:That would be a difference in degree rather than in kind though? Since you mention it, the spread of fundamentalist Catholic and evangelical Christianity in Africa is probably the second most problematic and undesirable religious movement in the world after fundamentalist Islam. Like Islam, this particular current of Christianity is causing the spread of laws about executing people and other sweeping theocratic impositions. I think it is very likely that violent Christian terrorist groups, armies and movements in that region will emerge sporadically, and ultimately end up getting droned just like ISIS and AQ have. But there's still quite a ways to go before we get to that point - at the moment, your example of the LRA pales in comparison to Boko Haram on the same continent.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:35
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Liberal_L33t posted:If that is the case - if Islam and the cultural values with which it is inextricably associated in that part of the world did not meaningfully contribute to the current state of affairs - why are all of the other countries that have been exploited or warred upon by western (or non-western!) imperialists within the past couple of centuries not completely full of theocracies and violent religious death cults? These violent groups, I might add, have in the past few years shifted more to making attacks against targets with no real material/political significance (Charlie Hebdo and other cartoonists come to mind) for purely religious reasons. 
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Jul 8, 2015 20:36
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That looks like Khmer. Are you trying to make some kind of point about Buddhism?
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Jul 8, 2015 20:46
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TheImmigrant posted:Disagree. The Qur'an is the foundational document for Islam. Even from the outside, no understanding of Islam is complete without knowledge of the Qur'an. It's quite possible to understand virtually any political-religious movement without reading it's foundational texts, and those texts rarely provide any insight into the movement. Which part of the bible provides illumination on the politics of abortion clinic bombers, or the structure of the Catholic church, or the motivations for the crusades, or insight into Protestant-Catholic strife, or insight into Christian slave-holding doctrine, or into Christian abolitionism? It's just an odd way to claim insight, along with the fact that you've worked in a Muslim country, and presumably learned Arabic as part of that. It's really not much of a rebuttal of the claim you're a racist, deserved or not, that you worked in a Muslim country. Plenty of racist white people went to foreign lands, and plenty of weird islamophobes have cracked open a Qur'an with the intent of finding passages about the Taqiya-using muslims who always lie about their religion. If you have some history of earnestly, formally studying the religion, then talk about that. But "I once read the Qur'an" is kind of weird without context. I once read the Analects, that doesn't mean I know anything about Confucianism in modern China.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:49
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TheImmigrant posted:That looks like Khmer. Are you trying to make some kind of point about Buddhism? Quite a number of the Khmer Rouges worst lieutenants were, in fact, Buddhist monks, actually.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:03
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Abner Cadaver II posted:If you buy the idea that grabbing random laws out of the Old Testament to obey is truly Christian, sure. To be a fundamentalist Christian, yes. Don't move my goalposts for me, I am talking about fundamentalism, not this "political Christianity/Islam" strawman you keep bringing up. Abner Cadaver II posted:And that's what we (by which I meant everyone in this thread who isn't just raging about how bad religion is always forever) are arguing is wrong. "It's in the Qur'an so the most literal extreme interpretations of those specific passages are correct" is bad theology. You're just ignoring centuries of Islamic scholarship, which closely parallels Christian and Judaic scholarship in its increasingly humanist views, and taking the most violent extant sects and saying they're truly representative because they're the most violently repressive. I'm not saying the most violent extant sects are truly representative because they are the most violently repressive, not am I even saying they are truly representative at all. They are fundamentalist Muslims, however, and their actions are justified in the Quran. ISIS has not formed out of one out-of-context verse. There are lots of verses that explicitly support many of ISIS' actions. Please 'interpret' this Surah, 9:29. quote:"Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled." quote:"[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, "I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip." Also, please don't minimize the belief that the Quran is the literal word of god. Where there are contradictions, there is the law of abrogation where a chronologically later verse usually takes precedence over the earlier contradiction, but everything in it is the literal Word of God(tm) Interestingly, more of the earlier verses are more peaceful than the later ones.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:05
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Rakosi posted:To be a fundamentalist Christian, yes. Don't move my goalposts for me, I am talking about fundamentalism, not this "political Christianity/Islam" strawman you keep bringing up. Great condescending tm.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:10
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Rakosi posted:Also, please don't minimize the belief that the Quran is the literal word of god. Where there are contradictions, there is the law of abrogation where a chronologically later verse usually takes precedence over the earlier contradiction, but everything in it is the literal Word of God(tm) Interestingly, more of the earlier verses are more peaceful than the later ones. Which is made hilarious (in a sad way) by the fact that the Quran was assembled after it's dictation. We could've had a much more peaceful Islam if the pages of a book had been shuffled a bit differently. TheImmigrant posted:That looks like Khmer. Are you trying to make some kind of point about Buddhism? It wouldn't be D&D without contextless pics that are posted in the hopes that you don't get it so they can smugly explain the significance instead of just laying their ideas out in text in the first place. ----------------
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Jul 8, 2015 21:18
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Narciss posted:Which is made hilarious (in a sad way) by the fact that the Quran was assembled after it's dictation. We could've had a much more peaceful Islam if the pages of a book had been shuffled a bit differently. The Quran is assembled according to the length of the surahs not chronological order (the last surahs in the book are actually the first revealed). But by all means enjoy you quirky jab at a religion you don't even understand.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:22
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ToxicAcne posted:The Quran is assembled according to the length of the surahs not chronological order (the last surahs in the book are actually the first revealed). But by all means enjoy you quirky jab at a religion you don't even understand. Wait... so if they're assembled by length and not chronological order, why do the later passages take precedence? That makes even less sense. ----------------
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Jul 8, 2015 21:24
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Rakosi posted:
At-Tawbah specifically addresses a treaty made with the Byzantines, and the entirety of the speech basically calls to protect any peaceful infidels and murder any who break the truce. Because of that you get a pretty even mixture of passages like yours and these "And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the words of Allah . Then deliver him to his place of safety. That is because they are a people who do not know." " So as long as they are upright toward you (polytheists, ie the Byzantines), be upright toward them. Indeed, Allah loves the righteous [who fear Him]." The summary of it is verse 12: "And if they break their oaths after their treaty and defame your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief, for indeed, there are no oaths [sacred] to them; [fight them that] they might cease." But this is a lay persons interpretation of At Tawba however. I can ask the local Imam if you really desire. Might be a few days before I get around to it. Schizotek fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 21:26
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Overall, I'm mostly reacting to the contention that it's perfectly okay to "modernize" native populations by any amount of force and that the only reason they could possibly want to resist it is because they hate civilization. It reminds me way too much of the rhetoric used by colonialists, racists, and 20th century dictators. Was it okay for Canada to forcibly modernize the natives by taking away their kids and educating them in special schools designed to eradicate their culture and force them to assimilate completely into white Canadian culture? Should Stalin get a pass for his brutality because the Soviets rapidly modernized Russian society and crushed organized religion? Equal rights for women is a good thing, but rapid forced modernization efforts that fail to respect the targets' culture tend to go well beyond just giving everyone equal rights and typically end up stomping all over the target's culture for the sheer sake of it. On top of that, these efforts typically tend to introduce the "civilizer's" cultural biases that may indeed go against human rights themselves. For example, although the British administrations in India and the Middle East typically banned violently misogynistic practices, they also imposed harsh bans on homosexuality with severe punishments, many of which have survived unchanged to the modern day.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:34
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Narciss posted:Wait... so if they're assembled by length and not chronological order, why do the later passages take precedence? That makes even less sense. All the surahs have a chronological date but they are not assembled according to them.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:59
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TheImmigrant posted:Wow, that mug is the gift that keeps giving. The amount of support I provided Hezbollah with the purchase of a souvenir mug in Baalbek is de minimis, certainly not 'material.' It's still one of my favorite souvenirs ever. I wasn't one of the ones who was appalled you bought it, but I'm not going to not give you poo poo about it.
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Jul 8, 2015 22:38
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Main Paineframe posted:Should Stalin get a pass for his brutality because the Soviets rapidly modernized Russian society and crushed organized religion?
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Jul 8, 2015 23:02
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rudatron posted:Yes. You have a point with an outside force being resisted simply because they are outsiders, that's a natural human thing to do. But you cannot have the revolution without the terror, the declaration of the rights of man without the committee of public safety. This was the mistake of the Egyptian people in the Arab Spring, they did not organize paramilitary forces to purge the 'deep state' of the military and, as a result, the deep state is still in power. They largely didn't even recognize the deep state of the military when it came to overthrowing Mubarak. It doesn't matter what you do to fight if you aren't even looking at the right enemy.
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Jul 8, 2015 23:06
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Main Paineframe posted:Equal rights for women is a good thing, but Replace all posts by religious apologists in this thread with this for accuracy. Maybe add an asterisk to make it women*, to clarify that women are being used as a synecdoche for everyone who isn't a straight male 30+ year old patriarch of a single religion. Main Paineframe posted:rapid forced modernization efforts that fail to respect the targets' culture tend to go well beyond just giving everyone equal rights and typically end up stomping all over the target's culture for the sheer sake of it. On top of that, these efforts typically tend to introduce the "civilizer's" cultural biases that may indeed go against human rights themselves. For example, although the British administrations in India and the Middle East typically banned violently misogynistic practices, they also imposed harsh bans on homosexuality with severe punishments, many of which have survived unchanged to the modern day. Indeed, pre-imperial-era middle eastern cultures were known for their fluid attitudes towards sexuality and their tolerance of homosexuality. But please, elaborate more about how individual human rights (which, throughout human history, basically translates to "The right to live your life how you want without your ignorant zealot neighbors lynching you or legislating against you", a right that citizens of very few muslim countries enjoy today) constitute an awful cultural bias. To the extent that their "culture" depends on enforcing medieval values on everyone around them, it really doesn't deserve to be respected.
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Jul 8, 2015 23:11
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rudatron posted:Yes. You have a point with an outside force being resisted simply because they are outsiders, that's a natural human thing to do. But you cannot have the revolution without the terror, the declaration of the rights of man without the committee of public safety. This was the mistake of the Egyptian people in the Arab Spring, they did not organize paramilitary forces to purge the 'deep state' of the military and, as a result, the deep state is still in power. Indeed, if only the Islamic fundamentalists had organized a militia more quickly, they could have exterminated all of the secularists, christians, and businesspeople who supported that awful, fascistic military counter-revolution (against a president who had just declared himself to be a despot and utterly dissolved the democracy within months of winning election).
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Jul 8, 2015 23:13
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Stalinist purges: A necessary component of liberal democracy
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Jul 8, 2015 23:15
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History has shown that people in power tend to not want to give up that power. The transition from pre-modern to modern represents a change in thought, but also in power structures - that cannot happen without confrontation. Even british liberal democracy would have been impossible without the english civil war.On Authority - Engels posted:A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. rudatron fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 23:29
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Liberal_L33t posted:
I mean if you include the Hellenistic stuff, sure.
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Jul 9, 2015 00:54
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Yeah Ummayad Spain was kinda infamous for it's homosexuality at the time. Edit: also Pakistan has the Hijra which form a third gender but it is debatable whether Pakistan is in the Middle east. ToxicAcne fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 01:30
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Down-low homosexuality, where men don't identify as gay, but practice gay sex, is extremely common in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is reputedly a paradise for gay Western expats who don't mind paying lip service to the closet.
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Jul 9, 2015 01:44
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I wouldn't really consider pederasty / pedophilia to really count as a liberal, enlightened practice though. Goes for the Greeks/Romans and Muslims alike
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Jul 9, 2015 01:56
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Rakosi posted:The problems with fundamentalist Islam is the fundamentals of Islam. The rest of your post would be a lot less dumb if you hadn't lead with this. What are the fundamentals of Islam? Like, identify them. Because, while I don't really disagree with much of what else you said about Islam (the way it is practiced generally speaking, Islam, like all Abrahamic religions, is more violent than Jainism, there can be no question), talking about the "fundamentals of Islam" as if there's anything that qualifies a person as being a Muslim other than I guess maybe believing the Shahada to be a true statement is pretty much necessarily rubbish. Muslims are diverse in beliefs and practice and some of them disagree just as wildly with each other about the nature of their religion as some Christians. It doesn't make sense to talk about Islam's "fundamentals" in anything but the most prosaic of terms. This goes back to my original post in the thread. Anything that even alludes to the idea of there being a "real Islam" necessarily implies that there are people out there who believe they're Muslims but actually aren't, which is just silly. Main Paineframe posted:Equal rights for women is a good thing, but rapid forced modernization efforts that fail to respect the targets' culture tend to go well beyond just giving everyone equal rights and typically end up stomping all over the target's culture for the sheer sake of it. How dare misogyny be stomped over. "Equal rights for women is a good thing, but" - much like "I'm not a racist, but" - is a string of words that ought to lead any reasonable person to treat whatever follows with contempt by default. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 04:16
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TheImmigrant posted:Down-low homosexuality, where men don't identify as gay, but practice gay sex, is extremely common in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is reputedly a paradise for gay Western expats who don't mind paying lip service to the closet. The majority of the Muslim world had legalized homosexuality well over a century before much of the West did, and lots of really old Gay Media mentions various "turkish" style things which seemed to imply that Turkey was a big gay tourist destination. Smudgie Buggler posted:How dare misogyny be stomped over. Schizotek fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 05:09
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Schizotek posted:Given the way certain ME leaders decided to "put an end" to misogyny was to outlaw even the most basic head coverings and then massacre a sit-in at a major holy site, he has a relevant point regarding the ME. A lot of people in this thread think that's a good thing. You gotta bring the barbarians into the 21st century somehow right?
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Jul 9, 2015 07:35
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