posted
Did you not actually read it, or did you simply feel like lying just then?
Registered: Mar 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
The world would be so much better without religion. Religion has done nothing but bring death and destruction throughout the ages. How many wars were fought for a God who's teachings include peace and loving thy neighbor? Bah! There's no such thing as God or Allah or Yaweh or Budda or whatever. They were just attempts by primitive human beings to explain the things in the world they didn't understand.
I understand how it can be comforting to believe in a higher power that watches over us and protects us. But anybody who relies on that faith to get them through difficult times is a fool.
People should have faith in themselves, that they can get through those bad times. And not believe some bearded jackass is gonna carry you on his back so you never have to face your problems.
I know this isn't exactly on topic, but I just needed to rant my sacreligious thoughts. I'm totally open for debate on this subject. And if any of you are deeply religious I apologize if my words offend you. But the world needs to wake up and realize that no one but yourelf can carry you through hard times. And all the faith you may have isn't going to insulate you from the hardships of life.
There, I think I'm done for now. Just don't get me started on organized religion and the church. Cuz that's a whole other pile of crap.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Faith doesn't insulate you from hardships, it is an anchor point to get you through your hardships.
TSN, yes I read the article. I also have dealt with fundamentalist Muslims which that post pretty much summed up their outlook. If you are not a follower of Islam, you deserve death. That was their view.
That was a nice tidy speech. Makes me wonder how much he pays his speech writers.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
WizArtist II, you need to practise your textual analysis, still a lot of kneejerk to it.
Bin Laden, you wrote:
quote:All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahideen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This guy has a dry sense of humor, I have to respect that.
Of course much of the speech is propaganda, when you are beset like Bin Laden you'd have to take every chance to get the word out, but there are some interesting nuggets and grains of truth in that letter. Even though some of it is post-speculation, the author shows much more subtlety and afterthought than he's made out to be capable of on the news networks. And GOD had much less to do with his explanations of his actions than I would have expected.
Da_bang80: Your black/white view on religion is a typical child of its time and understandable, I used to feel that way too, but although some would argue that the antiquated views on human origin and responsibilities that the four world religions offer are arbitrary and constraining, they just take another (older) route of explaining the reality around us than we secularized guys do. Oftentimes we're as smart and as dumb anyway.
Here comes the old hat... Countries and peoples can be just as horrible and misguided without religion, like in Stalinist Soviet, Nazi Germany or any other of the extremist secular nations in modern history,a nd the greatest atrocities in history need not be guided or misguided by religion at all to happen, like with the japanese experimentation camps in China, where they dissected live humans and raped women only to cut out the future fetus to experiment on it too. Those doctors and officers were Buddhists and Shintoists, didn't keep them from compromising their souls (if one believes in souls).
Our convictions seem to have surprisingly little to do with what ultimately goes down in the world. Mostly the screwups are due to bad timing, egotism and fear, and in that order the only cures are omniscience or altruistic subtlety (we need either Usul or a super-UN), advanced global ethics and communication (how long have we tried to get that to work? Still, I see seeds of hope everywhere) and about combatting fear, we need a new media system, one that doesn't rely on ratings to pick what story to fuel at any given point in time. Of course, that's as easy to execute as debunking the monetary system and doing a "Macross island" global gettogether or starting the Star Trek Federation penniless funding system.
WizArtist II wrote:
quote:Makes me wonder how much he pays his speech writers.
Significantly less than Bush, and yet he comes off as much more factual and imaginative than any of Bush's folksy quips.
Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Da_bang80: Sarcasm. The most intelligent form of humour.
Other than that I have nothing else to say for once. It's 4 in the morning and my caffeine high's wearing off.
ACTUALLY! I wasn't being sarcastic. The internet lends itself SO easily to sarcasm... BUT it appears people on this board don't NOTICE smiley faces. They are there to smooth out any chance of words being miss-construed as sarcasm (well that's one use for them).
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I'm pretty sure the more common use is the exact opposite. It indicates that something which could have been taken seriously was actually meant sarcastically/jokingly.
"...the four world religions..."
Out of curiosity, which four are you calling "the" four?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well that definition is EXACTLY what I'm saying... yet in a different way.
What 'four' are you on about - must be in reguards to another post... quote that post.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism. Am I correct?
You got a point Nim. Maybe humanity is just naturally evil. Makes one wonder what God is really like... Maybe we got it all wrong. And that the God most people worship isn't all sugar and spice like most people think. If he made us "in his own image" then he must be one seriously twisted dude with a sick sense of humour.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
Well, Judaism is important historically and in the modern world politically, at least indirectly. But there aren't nearly as many Jews as there are, say, followers of what Wikipedia loosely describes as "Chinese traditional religion." And there are more Hindus than Buddhists, plus they've got nuclear weapons.
But, I mean, define "major."
Registered: Mar 1999
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
We wonder why we have differences? Look at the prior takes on the meaning of "sarcasm".
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: What would the situation be in Iraq if Bush I had continued on to Bagdad with all the little coalition behind him and taken Saddam out during Gulf War I? Would it have stopped 9/11?
Would it have prevented 9/11?
Only if the entire coalition stayed to rebuild Iraq as a democracy and we kept the muslim allies we had back then.
Probably not though- Afghanistan is the real wellspring of the 9/11 attack (and our pals in Saudi Arabia, of course).
It might have been nice if Clinton's administration had retaliated for the U.S.S. Cole bombing or had just extridited Bin Laden back when the saudis wanted to dump him on us. Or if Bush's administration had retaliated for the U.S.S. Cole bombing....captured Al Queida operatives have said that the lack of response was the final "go ahead" for 9/11.
They thought they'd get off without any consequences- again.
But it's all speculation and not terribly useful in today's situation.
We still need to do almost all the stuff we set out to do at the start of the "War on Terror"- : Eliminate all Taliban/terrorists from Afghanistan. Capture/Kill Bin Laden. Cripple/ eliminate Al Queida. Create/Maintan real allies in the arab world to prevent future terrorist attacks... that one is debatable- a lot of good has reportedly been done against terrorists, but weither it's because of the US's actions or just desperation to defend themselves after the US put them on a moral defensive is for history to decide.
quote:Originally posted by Toadkiller: Fusion power. If we had spent the money we had spent of Iraq in solving our actual national vulnerability - total dependance on foreign power - we'd be better off.
We've spent billions of dollars, for that money we could have well funded any of several permanent energy solutions. As it is we're funding the Saudi's who take their cut and pass the rest to "the terrorists".
Either that or take the traditional British tack. Seize and "colonize" the Saudi fields. No insurgents, because we remove the population. THEN fund the permanent alternative energy programs.
Colonization is no answer- never worked back then, sure wont now. Just look at all the wonderful, enlightened -former colony- countries.
As to hitting the Saudis in their pocketbook (and thus showing the world it's not all about the oil), by reducing speed limits from 70mph to 55 on national highways and from 65mph to 50mph on local turnpikes/expressways an estimated 17% would be saved in expended fuel (on adverage cars- not shit like the Humvee).
Add to that, government required mileage of 35 miles per gallon for new cars/trucks and an estimated 10-15% would be saved.
So: lose the sportscars and SUV's, drive a bit slower and grow the fuck up a bit and not only will our dependence on foreign scumbags diminish, but so will gas/oil prices.
Just for kicks- tell the airline industry it wont get it's yearly bailout if they cant go with jets that are even slightly more fuel efficent....even 1% more would yield a savings of millions of barrells of oil annualy.
Not that you'll find a Republican voting for anything like common sense- they have their oil lobbiests to worry about.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
It helps if we know who said what though...without wading through four pages of posts.
Besides, you cant have only "four major religons".
Pastafarians must be equally represented!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
Don't forget those crazy Zoroastrians.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
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