Question that perplexes me

[clirus]

So the Bible is racist.

I think the Bible is truth.

Too many people use the word racist to avoid the truth.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I find it interesting how clirus seems to conflate the terms "Arab" and "muslim".

It's a common mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

There are approximately 14 million Arabs who identify as Christians, for example, making their number exceed the sum total of all Jews on this planet.

Likewise, there are plenty of muslims in Non-Arabic countries.
Picturing every muslim as an arab makes about as much sense as picturing every Christian as an African.

 

[razeontherock]

The answer to this is complex and involves a lot of history during the last century. But it's too much work to understand that, so most people to prefer to believe that Al Qaeda is just insane.

Good summary, works for me

 

[razeontherock]

Self-loathing? How is it self-loathing to point out that at least some of the ill-will of the Middle East towards the West is due to the nasty habit Western Nations have of deposing their governments and stealing their resources?

Wait. We bring the steel, technology and engineering, and teach them the oil industry. Then they "nationalize" (steal) it, and we say "well ok." Who is stealing resources from whom?

And there's just as much stuff in the Bible about not associating with non-Christians, and how most of them are worthy of death.

Chapter and verse? You won't find a single one. In other words, that's a LIE. (Judaism, you could make the case but you'd still be wrong)

 

[razeontherock]

The answer is, because it is profitable for the state,

No

 

[razeontherock]

Absolutely agree. And even when Americans said "All men are created equal" they meant all white men (with a possible exception for Catholics)

Oh a DEFINITE exception for Catholics, Baptists and Jews. And anyone not of prominent status, but they wouldn't have any way of finding out about elections anyway.

 

[razeontherock]

Picturing every muslim as an arab makes about as much sense as picturing every Christian as an African.

There are lots of good jokes for this, across many talk forums. Sadly, I can't think of a way to interconnect them ...

 

[TheReasoner]

Wait. We bring the steel, technology and engineering, and teach them the oil industry. Then they "nationalize" (steal) it, and we say "well ok." Who is stealing resources from whom?

You use Arabic numerals, right? Paper money? The wheel? And where is steel made anyway? File:Steel production by country map.PNG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everywhere. Metallurgy is a well developed field and is not tied down to any one part of the world. Sure we have different area of expertise, my own university is very skilled at alloys developed for very low temperatures of operation, but we don't have any monopoly on it.

Besides, if technology is adopted elsewhere the people who adopt it are likely to adapt it to their needs and further develop it. And as academia works the knowledge is likely to seep out into the world and benefit us all.

As for nationalization being theft... What makes you say that? Their natural resources, their choice. Of course sometimes the process can be worthy of criticism, but that is not always the case. I do not consider the process of nationalization of our hydroelectric power plants as anything but good; Investors were told they could keep their plants for sixty years after construction. Upon completion of this sixty year period the ownership would be transferred to the state. I fail to see how this is anything but legitimate. Besides there are many instances of corporations severely abusing their power to rob a nation of their natural (and finite) resources. That harms many more people than a nationalization is likely to do. In fact, in many instances nationalization has proven highly beneficial. Where it hasn't triggered a violent response from another power with invested interest in said nationalized resource that is.

More advanced technologies are also developed in other countries. It's not like all of it is from the states. Or even Europe. Yeah, we have a lot of advanced technological development, but I fail to see that these accusations you bring up have merit. They seem - though this may not be accurate - as a blanket statement which hardly fits any lone example.

Chapter and verse? You won't find a single one. In other words, that's a LIE. (Judaism, you could make the case but you'd still be wrong)

Lie: noun
an intentionally false statement

While false, I am not convinced it was intentional. Do not call something a lie - or accuse it of something else - unless you are certain that the accusation is valid.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Wait. We bring the steel, technology and engineering, and teach them the oil industry. Then they "nationalize" (steal) it, and we say "well ok." Who is stealing resources from whom?

Filthy savages! All their natural resources naturally belong to us, right?

 

[clirus]

I find it interesting how clirus seems to conflate the terms "Arab" and "muslim".

It's a common mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

There are approximately 14 million Arabs who identify as Christians, for example, making their number exceed the sum total of all Jews on this planet.

Likewise, there are plenty of muslims in Non-Arabic countries.
Picturing every muslim as an arab makes about as much sense as picturing every Christian as an African.

Could you discuss the 14 million Arabs that are identified as Christians? The Catholic Church includes a lot of people that call themselves Catholics/Christians but who worship idols. The Catholic Church even allows homosexuals and people that advocate abortion to be called Catholics/Christians.

I base my total understanding of Arabs and/or Muslims on what the Bible says about Ishmael.

This leads to the subject called "World View"

World View

I view the world from the standpoint that what the Bible says is truth and understand all other things in the light of what the Bible says.

My development of a World View began many years ago when I began to relate world events and political events to what was presented in the Bible. A key event was when I started hearing about Islam and realized that Islam was just a Theocracy approach to dealing with what the sins of the Old Testament of the Bible. Islam does do stonings while Christian tolerance would call for executions only after a jury trial (actually even the Old Testament require congregational approval even in a stoning since one stone will probably not kill anyone).

Even Mohamad is like Jesus except Mohamad never did miracles.

When I am confronted with an issue now, I first see what the Bible says, then look for worldly information (I often go to wikipedia as my source, since they seem to be the least biased) that establish links between what the Bible says and an understanding of the events and the motivation of the people involved. It came as a shock to me that Liberal Christians do base their support for Socialism and Pacifism on an interpretation of the Bible.

Some say the Bible is not applicable to present day issues and events, but I always keep in mind the Children's Sermon on Liposuction. When asked what the Bible said about Liposuction, the answer was basically nothing, except the Bible does discuss vanity and pride.

I believe the Bible provides an understanding of the past, the present and the future.

You can do no better than to learn from the past, live in the present, and plan for the future.

I do not believe anyone can understand the Bible except they accept Jesus Christ as Lord/Savior and commit to following the commandments/doctrines of the Bible.

 

[clirus]

Filthy savages! All their natural resources naturally belong to us, right?

Maybe they should be shared by those that own the property and those that provide the technology?

 

[MacFall]

Could you discuss the 14 million Arabs that are identified as Christians? The Catholic Church includes a lot of people that call themselves Catholics/Christians but who worship idols. The Catholic Church even allows homosexuals and people that advocate abortion to be called Catholics/Christians.

I base my total understanding of Arabs and/or Muslims on what the Bible says about Ishmael.

Are you seriously suggesting that the 14 million Arabs who believe that they are Christians are not in fact Christians, because of who their ancestors were?

 

[TheReasoner]

Maybe they should be shared by those that own the property and those that provide the technology?

So you're saying that we should give them a portion of all profits made off of any product incorporating their technology as well, right? You're arguing for consistency I suppose? They use our technology and we should benefit from that. We use theirs, same deal. Am I right?

 

[onemorequestion]

Why is the Taliban considered an enemy of America?

Why don't you take your Christian Eastern Orthodox self over to Afghanistan and go into a Taliban camp and ask them yourself?

Why is America continue to target them? . . .

Because they kill us.

"Duh," is sometimes the only appropriate response to some mindsets.

 

[MacFall]

Why don't you take your Christian Eastern Orthodox self over to Afghanistan and go into a Taliban camp and ask them yourself?

There are dozens of Taliban "camps". Only a few of them were ever hostile to the US - until the US military started slaughtering them all alike. Now they're pretty much all hostile.

Because they kill us.

Okay Gollum.

Stop thinking in collectivist terms and maybe this will make more sense. There is no "they" and there is no "us". There are only individuals. The individuals calling themselves the United States government have been killing individuals in the Middle East for decades, in support of brutal dictators which, if they were established by a foreign power here in America, would be violently opposed by the American people. And do you think that maybe there would be some hostility by Americans toward that foreign power? Do you think that maybe, after seeing their friends and family tortured, raped and murdered by the regime, Americans might be desperate enough to stick it to that foreign power however they could?

Of course, the best thing for Americans would be if that foreign power actually invaded America itself. The foreign soldiers would die by the bushel. But there is an analogue to that for the Middle Eastern peoples in Afghanistan.

For decades, Middle Eastern people have wanted to harm the American government, because they believe - rightly - that without the support of the American government, the tyrannical governments that oppress them would crumble. That is a perfectly true and rational belief. It is only through the support of the U.S. military that the regime of, say, Saudi Arabia persists. Now the best thing for those people who want to see the U.S. weakened would be for the U.S. to fight a land war in Afghanistan, the historical "graveyard of empires".

The U.S. played right into their hands. Their military losses are not huge, but the war is bankrupting them. And it turns out that that is exactly what Osama bin Ladin intended when he orchestrated 9/11 - draw the U.S. into an unwinnable war that they can't afford economically. He recruited desperate men who have long been victimized by the Saudi regime supported by the United States to do it. And now, those same desperate men travel hundreds of miles to fight the U.S. in Afghanistan. The U.S. government calls them "Taliban". The American people, blind, ignorant, and intellectually lazy, believe it. The people responsible for 9/11 are either all dead, or if they are still alive, are certainly not in Afghanistan. But it's enough for the government to call someone or a group of someones "Taliban" or "Al qaida" and that's enough in the minds of the American people to justify killing them. Not only that, but it justifies killing their neighbors and friends and family, too.

But isn't that exactly what made 9/11 a crime - the fact that thousands of people who had nothing to do with the work of the U.S. government over the past 50 years were killed by it? And does the fact that a few Islamic extremists murdered American noncombatants justify American military actions that kill and destroy the property of others, just because they are in the same nation or of the same faith as those extremists? No, it does not. Nor should Americans assume that when the people who live there shoot back, it is because they are Islamic extremists, and not because they have been witnesses to the crimes committed both directly and indirectly by the United States government for well over a generation.

Now with that in mind, does the question of "what on Earth are we doing in Afghanistan" make more sense?

"Duh," is sometimes the only appropriate response to some mindsets.

Such as the mindset that thinks that the American government can spend half a century killing Middle Eastern people, but when the Middle Eastern people strike back it's because they hate us for our freedom and Coca Cola.

 

[TheReasoner]

Because they kill us.

"Duh," is sometimes the only appropriate response to some mindsets.

Sure. But they kill [some of] your people because you killed [a lot more of] their people first. It begs the question, who should stop the killing first?

 

[MacFall]

Sure. But they kill [some of] your people because you killed [a lot more of] their people first. It begs the question, who should stop the killing first?

I propose a game of "who can stop murdering people for being tangentially related to a political conflict first". Winners get to stop being murderers. Ready set go.

 

[bricklayer]

Why is the Taliban considered an enemy of America?

Why is America continue to target them? . . .

The taliban declared war on America in 1994.
We finally postured in kind in 2001.
Some of our enemies we isolate, others we target.
Given the nature of the taliban's relationship with another of our enemies, we have determined that it is better if they not be.

 

[MacFall]

The taliban declared war on America in 1994.

There are many ideologically distinct groups that are called "Taliban". One of those groups declared war on the United States in 1994. The United States has responded with military action against all factions of the Taliban, along with numerous other groups that have nothing to do with the Taliban but which the government calls "Taliban" anyway--only some of which were hostile; some others being friendly, and most being neutral. Now they are all hostile, except for when they can be bribed. Congratulations, U.S. government - you've managed to radicalize the entire cultural base of the Afghani people against America. U.S. foreign policy is a perfect combination of stupid and evil.

 

[clirus]

I propose a game of "who can stop murdering people for being tangentially related to a political conflict first". Winners get to stop being murderers. Ready set go.

Response

I would not what you as my neighbor, because I do believe you would defend me, even if you knew I was being killed.