EU

[may be rude]

 

hey what religions did you think are incompatible, and with what society?

 

Numerous Some Islam branches (the most popular ones, unfortunately) are incompatible with the rest of the western world, obviously and clearly.

 

Any culture with traditions like honour killings, killings and punishing of LGBT, forced marriages, paedophilia, witch-hunting, executions for apostasy, whipping and stoning for adultery is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture with strong advocacy of chauvinism, antisemitism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, anti-scientific movements is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that places religion on top of all things (with intolerant branch of religion as a bonus), even the state and the law is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that does not give full rights to women and abuse them is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that has strong need to spread and influence in the native environment of other cultures is not compatible with other cultures.

 

Any culture that has a strong identity that prevents efforts for integrating it or assimilating it will create parallel societies.

 

 

come on, you're painting a fifth of humanity with the ugliest things you can find. muslims are fine, they're great. western culture has plenty of ugly shit of its own.

 

you shouldnt generalize like that. generalizing groups negatively is historically very problematic, its a very unfortunate and troublesome tendency of humanity. it just worsens things. on top of that, you are generalizing a religion, which is extra sensitive because a religion is a vocabulary for the divine and the things that are most important to people. even worse, you're going after a religion that is currently besieged with bigotry. very concerning levels of prejudice are going on against muslims, and its fucked up. muslims i know are super awesome and i think its really awful that they have to see the rhetoric coming from some people about their religion. these levels of discrimination should be seriously concerning, and thats why some people are extra protective.

 

this is why the thread turned on you know over on page 24.

 

i agree that womens rights and some of those other issues are important but if you have to get into where it intersects a religion, a healthy portion of delicacy is in order.

[usagi]

he gone, yo.

 

edit: JEXIT

[luke viia]

wtf, did I miss something? Plenty of douchebaggery in here, Jev may be weird and difficult but don't gang up on someone like that, you're grown ass people. Ugh, wattm.

[doublename]

beggin fer it e wuz

[sweepstakes]

It's probably too late to ask, but how did we know it was Jev?

[koolkeyZ865]

beggin fer it e wuz

[cwmbrancity]

back to the thread

 

Sadiq Khan did well in the debates, now more than ever with once in a generation levels Tory infighting Britain needs strong opposition to re-build bridges with the continent that Boris the olde Etonian cunt & Farage have done their best to smash, but Labour are fucked.

 

Farage's performance in Brussels was a disgrace, a braying coward playing to an imaginary gallery in his head. The nerve of this man to poke at allies was one of the most pathetic things seen for a while. His tone was unfit for a pub full of drunks, nevermind an international forum

 

[Alcofribas]

It's probably too late to ask, but how did we know it was Jev?

it's too far gone for that mate. i'm sorry. but it's too late.

[sweepstakes]

 

It's probably too late to ask, but how did we know it was Jev?

it's too far gone for that mate. i'm sorry. but it's too late.

 

[auxien]

back to the thread

 

Sadiq Khan did well in the debates, now more than ever with once in a generation levels Tory infighting Britain needs strong opposition to re-build bridges with the continent that Boris the olde Etonian cunt & Farage have done their best to smash, but Labour are fucked.

 

Farage's performance in Brussels was a disgrace, a braying coward playing to an imaginary gallery in his head. The nerve of this man to poke at allies was one of the most pathetic things seen for a while. His tone was unfit for a pub full of drunks, nevermind an international forum

 

 

This speech is all just dramatics, it's simply a victory lap, but more in the vein of a child sticking his tongue out at another.

 

To be fair, at least from what the video shows, before he speaks a word half of those gathered are booing and yelling at him, so if anyone caused this to seem the atmosphere of a pub full of drunks, it wasn't started by him. And while I'm being fair, he does have some valid points and criticisms (the Euro being weak/volatile, issues with the state of some Mediterranean nations from an economic stance, there'll likely be other nations leaving the EU, etc.). That said, he's acting like a total fucking baby and what's worse, a baby with a big set of balls right now. He's absolutely dripping with confidence, and it's disgusting to see him parade it around. And if the Brits do leave the EU, very few people who know what they're talking about think they'll be better off economically or 'freedom-wise' or whatever the hell.

 

I know little about the EU rules, but why the hell are they even letting him up just to brag anyway? He's not actually an important member of the UK government, and he obviously had no real business there except to rile everyone up to get his dick hard. Why would the they even allow him time to speak?

[goDel]

Why? Because democracy.

[azatoth]

 

hey what religions did you think are incompatible, and with what society?

 

Numerous Some Islam branches (the most popular ones, unfortunately) are incompatible with the rest of the western world, obviously and clearly.

 

Any culture with traditions like honour killings, killings and punishing of LGBT, forced marriages, paedophilia, witch-hunting, executions for apostasy, whipping and stoning for adultery is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture with strong advocacy of chauvinism, antisemitism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, anti-scientific movements is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that places religion on top of all things (with intolerant branch of religion as a bonus), even the state and the law is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that does not give full rights to women and abuse them is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that has strong need to spread and influence in the native environment of other cultures is not compatible with other cultures.

 

Any culture that has a strong identity that prevents efforts for integrating it or assimilating it will create parallel societies.

 

 

Funny, most of those things could be applied to "western" culture and Christianity as well.

[Guest]

leave it alone, please.

Just stop replying to Jev. He craves attention and manages to make everything about him by being irritating, that's all there is to it. A simple little trick. Stop falling for it. He does not care about your opinion on anything, all he wants is attention.

The ganging-up is just his thing working out very well for him, it's what the little cunt needs. Put it to rest.

[bendish]

Democracy in this form is pathetic. There's nothing to be proud of when the very nature of the system can potentially divide a nation right down the middle. There should be no majority rule but proportional representation at all times. Consensus or nothing...and keep trying...a lot harder and more time consuming but worth it...

[phudoshin]

I watched "Children of Men" last night .

 

 

Holly shit it was prophetic

 

But also this:

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

hey what religions did you think are incompatible, and with what society?

Numerous Some Islam branches (the most popular ones, unfortunately) are incompatible with the rest of the western world, obviously and clearly.

 

 

Any culture with traditions like honour killings, killings and punishing of LGBT, forced marriages, paedophilia, witch-hunting, executions for apostasy, whipping and stoning for adultery is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture with strong advocacy of chauvinism, antisemitism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, anti-scientific movements is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that places religion on top of all things (with intolerant branch of religion as a bonus), even the state and the law is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that does not give full rights to women and abuse them is incompatible with the western culture.

 

Any culture that has strong need to spread and influence in the native environment of other cultures is not compatible with other cultures.

 

Any culture that has a strong identity that prevents efforts for integrating it or assimilating it will create parallel societies.

come on, you're painting a fifth of humanity with the ugliest things you can find. muslims are fine, they're great. western culture has plenty of ugly shit of its own.

 

you shouldnt generalize like that. generalizing groups negatively is historically very problematic, its a very unfortunate and troublesome tendency of humanity. it just worsens things. on top of that, you are generalizing a religion, which is extra sensitive because a religion is a vocabulary for the divine and the things that are most important to people. even worse, you're going after a religion that is currently besieged with bigotry. very concerning levels of prejudice are going on against muslims, and its fucked up. muslims i know are super awesome and i think its really awful that they have to see the rhetoric coming from some people about their religion. these levels of discrimination should be seriously concerning, and thats why some people are extra protective.

 

this is why the thread turned on you know over on page 24.

 

i agree that womens rights and some of those other issues are important but if you have to get into where it intersects a religion, a healthy portion of delicacy is in order.

 

All the Muslims I know are awesome people, too. (Aka "some of my best friends are Muslims!")

 

But this has nothing to do with "Muslims are bad people", it has to do with whether things in this world are consistent with humanist, classical-liberal values. (For example, recently there was there were two mass fatwas issued against both ISIS and LGBT killings in the Middle East. That is awesome.)

 

 

But whenever people mention that perhaps some tenets of Islam are motivating certain people to act badly, there is always a rush to say that Muslims are not bad people. And while I think this comes from a healthy place (probably the impulse to protect minority groups from persecution), it sometimes shuts down discussion about what drives problems in this world.

 

If you search-and-replace "Islam" with (e.g.) "Christianity", then these conversations look really strange:

 

Person A: The Bible espouses some horrible ideas and values

Person B: Not all Christians are bad people

 

(It took me far-too-long to realize that some liberals think criticisms of Islam are coded ways of saying "I don't like dark-skinned people." Probably surprisingly, I have come to think that is an understandable suspicion based on the history of race issues in America: The Strom Thurmans of the world always spoke in code, almost exactly like a Key and Peele sketch...)

[Alcofribas]

 

whenever people mention that perhaps some tenets of Islam are motivating certain people to act badly, there is always a rush to say that Muslims are not bad people. And while I think this comes from a healthy place (probably the impulse to protect minority groups from persecution), it sometimes shuts down discussion about what drives problems in this world.

 

If you search-and-replace "Islam" with (e.g.) "Christianity", then these conversations look really strange:

 

Person A: The Bible espouses some horrible ideas and values

Person B: Not all Christians are bad people

 

 

 

 

if the issue was merely that people refuse to allow a thoughtful consideration of Islamic texts and teachings then I'd agree with you entirely. but the problem is that "The Bible[Quaran] espouses some horrible ideas and values" is not by any means an adequate representation of the popular discourse nor does it take into consideration the geo-political conflicts in muslim countries. so, i can turn on the tv and see liberals and conservatives basically vilifying islam or making provocative and ultimately trite commentary ("Islam is the motherlaod of bad ideas") and those same people will advocate for war or torture or lawless, indiscriminate incarceration, etc etc. so imo the insidious problem is that most conversations on the issue either espouse or lend themselves to inflammatory, bigoted and/or unintelligent ideas and are commonly associated with advocacy in real conflicts that have real and incredibly fucked up consequences for muslims, and disgustingly, for people who aren't even muslim but who are basically the wrong kind of brown (cf sam harris's call for enhanced security in airports targeting any one who looks like they might be a terrorist, i.e. brown people, or the dismissal of "collateral damage.").

 

furthermore, the bible example is difficult in so far as christianity is in no way comparably vilified or persecuted as islam. pretty much every politician and lawmaker in the us has to publicly swear allegiance to a christian (or G-d forbid, Jewish) faith, it's in our court rooms, classrooms, it's on our money, it's friggin everywhere. there's this dope ass vatican that manages its treasures and pedophiles with complete immunity. i mean, obama is a christian and his opponents attacked him by accusing him of the crime of being...a muslim. the fact is the two religions are simply incomparable here b/c of the very different roles they've played in western civilization. there is a robust tradition of christianity and anti-christianity that is basically interwoven with western culture. if i want to learn about a variety of issues whether political or philosophical or whatever, chances are i'll be encounter christian and/or anti-christian texts and thinkers. if i want to read rebuttals of christianity i have a variety of classics i can turn to, from russell to paine to blake or whatever. no such canon exists at that level with respect to islam and the fact is for most people just reading sam harris smug boyahs suffices for the left-leaning and for the right, well, pick your poison.

 

so yeah, do i think we're in need of some serious and insightful confrontations with islam (and religion in general)? yes for sure. will such discussions entail some significant criticisms of basic tenants of religion that will offend believers? yes, as is to be expected and we should be basically unapologetic about it. but what i see is in popular discussion is of pretty low intellectual quality. i mean, i'd suggest that sam harris is a representative spokesman for "rational" and "enlightened" discourse critical of islam, and that guy is a fucking idiot. not to mention the fact that his positions on violence perpetuated against innocents are extremely inconsistent and self-serving.

 

i think it's just a lot more complicated than "islam contains some bad ideas folks" for so many reasons, from the complexities of religious evolutions internally and as they are interwoven with broader civilization and shit and also bc of the fact that a great deal of the world is torn by war and destruction which in our current epoch clearly entangles islam in a fucked up way both as a result of repulsive ideas internal to faith and for broader ways in which faith can be exploited and appropriated for a variety of means that are not intrinsic to its specific teachings.

 

but whatever, watmm discussion on islam blah blah.

 

*backflips into jihad*

[LimpyLoo]

1) people like to overlook that Sam Harris wants people who look like Sam Harris to be profiled as well...the idea that he simply wants 'brown people' to be profiled is simply not true (but people just assume to know what his positions are based on their thinking he's a bigot e.g. Torture) ....what he advocates is that certain people are vastly less likely to be a threats, and we should acknowledge that fact. All of our grandparents fit that (anti-) profile, for instance.

 

 

2) the very-uncomfortable truth is that Mohammad himself acted more like a member of ISIS than some wise, peace-and-love-preaching hippie dude. To the extent that the goal of Islam is to "follow the example of Muhammad", this is worrisome, no? That is what sets Islam apart from most other religions, whereby following the example of Jesus or Buddha or whoever leads people to more pro-social behavior.

 

3) "his positions on violence perpetuated against innocents are extremely inconsistent and self-serving"....For example? (Again, I think people like to assume they know his positions based on their perception of him)

[Alcofribas]

1) https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/to-profile-or-not-to-profile you can read this for his comments on profiling people who "look muslim."

 

2) i would argue that reading a religious text in such a literal way is an incoherent reading. the old testament is full of rape, infanticide, slaughter, etc. but somehow people have managed to appreciate its texts and not be murderous rapists. perhaps there's a similar practice among like, muslims and stuff.

 

3). just read his sad discussion with noam chomsky for his equivocations on state violence. there are also many pieces online that dissect his hypocrisy, here is one: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/sam-harris-uncovered/

 

or just pretend that the only reason people take issue with sam harris is bc of like misperceptions and stuff and regressive left and stuff. cool.

[caze]

if the issue was merely that people refuse to allow a thoughtful consideration of Islamic texts and teachings then I'd agree with you entirely. but the problem is that "The Bible[Quaran] espouses some horrible ideas and values" is not by any means an adequate representation of the popular discourse nor does it take into consideration the geo-political conflicts in muslim countries. so, i can turn on the tv and see liberals and conservatives basically vilifying islam or making provocative and ultimately trite commentary ("Islam is the motherlaod of bad ideas") and those same people will advocate for war or torture or lawless, indiscriminate incarceration, etc etc. so imo the insidious problem is that most conversations on the issue either espouse or lend themselves to inflammatory, bigoted and/or unintelligent ideas and are commonly associated with advocacy in real conflicts that have real and incredibly fucked up consequences for muslims, and disgustingly, for people who aren't even muslim but who are basically the wrong kind of brown (cf sam harris's call for enhanced security in airports targeting any one who looks like they might be a terrorist, i.e. brown people, or the dismissal of "collateral damage.").

Sam Harris has never called for profiling; advocated for war, torture, or for indiscriminate incarceration; nor did he ever dismiss collateral damage. This is the kind of nonsense I'm constantly complaining about on here, this level of intellectual dishonesty is rampant in public discourse today (not necesarrily from you Alco, maybe you're just too trusting of those who are and just genuinely misunderstand his positions, but the same can't be said for everyone sadly).

 

furthermore, the bible example is difficult in so far as christianity is in no way comparably vilified or persecuted as islam.

It's also not currently anwhere near as harmful to the planet. Now, not all of that persecution or vilification is justified of course, much of it probably stems from religious bigotry, or just plain old ignorance fuelled bigotry; but there are enough genuine problems which justify making such criticism more prominent than that of the negative role Christianity currently plays in world affairs.

 

so yeah, do i think we're in need of some serious and insightful confrontations with islam (and religion in general)? yes for sure. will such discussions entail some significant criticisms of basic tenants of religion that will offend believers? yes, as is to be expected and we should be basically unapologetic about it. but what i see is in popular discussion is of pretty low intellectual quality. i mean, i'd suggest that sam harris is a representative spokesman for "rational" and "enlightened" discourse critical of islam, and that guy is a fucking idiot. not to mention the fact that his positions on violence perpetuated against innocents are extremely inconsistent and self-serving.

Sam Harris is a great example of what you're arguing for at the start of your paragraph, not sure if you fail to realise this because you're being blinded by the dishonest arguments being made against him, or because you simply don't understand his arguments, but either way you really need to re-read what he's written on these issues, because you're completley missing the point.

 

i think it's just a lot more complicated than "islam contains some bad ideas folks" for so many reasons, from the complexities of religious evolutions internally and as they are interwoven with broader civilization and shit and also bc of the fact that a great deal of the world is torn by war and destruction which in our current epoch clearly entangles islam in a fucked up way both as a result of repulsive ideas internal to faith and for broader ways in which faith can be exploited and appropriated for a variety of means that are not intrinsic to its specific teachings.

I agree totally, so does Sam Harris btw.

[Alcofribas]

sam harris is a charlatan and a hack "philosopher." i normally think you're a well-spoken and reasonable poster but your comments and outright lies in that post (he has most certainly advocated for every one of those things) is quite disappointing.

 

but fuck it, another islam thread on here is lame. let's agree we see things quite differently and seek toward general lushness on this forum.

 

cheers

[caze]

sam harris is a charlatan and a hack "philosopher." i normally think you're a well-spoken and reasonable poster but your comments and outright lies in that post (he has most certainly advocated for every one of those things) is quite disappointing.

 

but fuck it, another islam thread on here is lame. let's agree we see things quite differently and seek toward general lushness on this forum.

 

cheers

nah, not letting that stand, no lies in my post.

 

on profiling: you could disagree with everything Harris says in that discussion with Schneier, but you'd still have to concede that he's not advocating for racial profiling. what he is advocating for, as Limpy already said, is negative profiling, i.e. dismissing certain individuals from profling - little old ladies, babies, fat elderly japanese guys, etc., looking at everyone else (which would include you, me, limpy and Sam Harris himself), and focusing on behavioral profiling with them. It doesn't really matter which approach is right when it comes to questions about Sam Harris' character though, if he's wrong it doesn't make him in the slightest bit bigoted or racist. if he's wrong he's simply failing to provide an effective method for profiling.

 

on torture: he advocates for it being completely illegal in all situations, but thinks up certain extreme hypothetical situations where it might be morally justifiable in consequentialist terms. this isn't particularly troubling. you might disagree with his arguments - I probably do as well, but he's not advocating for torture, waterboarding, enhanced interrogation, or anything like that.

 

on war: never made any public statements on the Iraq war before it happened AFAIK, says he was pretty much against it, was vaguely supportive of the Afghan war after the fact, I've never seen him publically advocate for initiating any war against anyone, aside from generally thinking taking on ISIS and the likes is a good idea without going into specifics other than local countries are best placed to deal with it, the west should help where/if it can. he has examined moral arguments for when war would be justified, which included scenarios like religious lunatics getting their hands on nuclear weapons. nothing particularly controversial in any of this even if you disagree with any of it, he takes pretty mainstream centrist stances here. he's not a pacificst clearly, but just as obviously he's not a hawk or a neocon, he doesn't go around advocating for war.

 

on incarceration: he's been highly critical of guantanamo, abu ghraib, etc. so not sure what you think he thinks on this one.

 

 

this post by him covers a lot of this stuff: https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy

[LimpyLoo]

sam harris is a charlatan and a hack "philosopher." i normally think you're a well-spoken and reasonable poster but your comments and outright lies in that post (he has most certainly advocated for every one of those things) is quite disappointing.

 

but fuck it, another islam thread on here is lame. let's agree we see things quite differently and seek toward general lushness on this forum.

 

cheers

Citations needed

[Audioblysk]

God dammit. Nobody fucking cares about Sam Harris. Let's not do this again, please.

 

I was talking to a leave supporter about the fact that possibly we could see Scotland, Northern Ireland and maybe Wales leave the UK with a referendum

 

"Great now we can conquer them all over again"

 

Is this reality?

 

lol. That is pretty terrifying and a little funny there are people that out of touch. The Scots would hold up in the hills and win. True Winterfell shit.

 

 

Farage's performance in Brussels was a disgrace, a braying coward playing to an imaginary gallery in his head. The nerve of this man to poke at allies was one of the most pathetic things seen for a while. His tone was unfit for a pub full of drunks, nevermind an international forum

 

 

Double lol. This is the first time I've ever seen an EU/European assembly and I love it. The dude just put his cock on the table and said 'Wot Wot! Well then, what have we here innit?! My big ol' peckah!? Why, where did that come from? It seems to be quite engorged and supple. Would you all like a taste of my toddlerpaste?! Ruddy good innit?! Buncha cheeky fahking coonts" And then went down with a double middle finger.

 

Shame there was no mic to drop

[cwmbrancity]

shame he didnt get chinned, but his physiology seems to be straying towards chinless wonder anyway

 

not advocating his assassination (especially in light of Jo Cox), but if it happened i'd quietly thank the gods