OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[spirokeat]

I'm not attacking you Boron, my apologies if you felt that. Aside of that, the point I wanted to make is that the US is no less culpable in its ownership of fringe extremists than most european countries, hence my sweeping generalisation comment.

And as for England being Protestant, well, the church of england may be (i have no idea), but to be honest standard christian religion plays very little role in many peoples lives here despite us hosting a highly multicultural populous, which I say with some experience having lived in Bradford for many years, probably the largest population of Musilms in the UK.

Though I wouldn't deny that many traits and traditions within English society were born of christian values.

Spiro

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Boron:
a source is poverty .
the islam is a 700-800 year younger religion than the catholic one .
so you could say history repeats sometimes.

Well, given the level of destructiveness of today's technology, this planet, and we humans, cannot afford to wait another 500-600 years until Muslims mellow out, become civilized, and abandon the path of the sword. A martyr-wannabe with a gene-tailored virus, who cares not who or how many die with him, is the most scary thing imaginable. And it's all too possible. Forget stolen nukes or home-grown ones. They can, at most, kill a few million. Some psychopath, funded by Saudi oil money, with the help of any of the many ex-Soviet unemployed bioweapons scientists, could end all human life. And unlike nukes, there's no technology that can be invented to detect such a thing at a port/airport. Hell, they could release the doomsday bug in their own country and let their own people, totally unknowing civilians, spread it around the world.

Cheery thought, eh?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by spirokeat:
And as for England being Protestant, well, the church of england may be (i have no idea)

The Anglican Church (the Church of England) is a Protestant Christian sect.

EDIT: quote formatting

[ July 28, 2004, 15:08: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Arryn]

Boron,

That all religious conflicts (wars) have 'poverty' as their root cause (if you use a very loose definition of the term 'poverty') is true. Religion is an excuse that people use to justify aggression used to achieve other goals. The Crusades weren't about faith. They were about land-grabbing abroad, and political maneuvering at home. The Holocaust wasn't about a difference of faith between Nazis and Jews. It was about a redistribution of wealth and the elimination of ideological threats. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not about faith, but about controlling land and revenge.

If you eliminate greed, vengeance, and true poverty, then you remove the excuses used for religious intolerance. But you have to get rid of all three. Curing poverty is not enough. Though it would take care of 99% of the problem, probably making the rest manageable.

EDIT: typo

[ July 28, 2004, 15:20: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Boron]

Originally posted by spirokeat:
I'm not attacking you Boron, my apologies if you felt that. Aside of that, the point I wanted to make is that the US is no less culpable in its ownership of fringe extremists than most european countries, hence my sweeping generalisation comment.

And as for England being Protestant, well, the church of england may be (i have no idea), but to be honest standard christian religion plays very little role in many peoples lives here despite us hosting a highly multicultural populous, which I say with some experience having lived in Bradford for many years, probably the largest population of Musilms in the UK.

Though I wouldn't deny that many traits and traditions within English society were born of christian values.

Spiro

yeah i was a bit surprised that you thought i am an american . so i wasn't quite sure if you are attacking me thnx for the clarification
we share the same view about generalisation . i think i am a very tolerant person .
that was why i felt a bit attacked because i thought i had pointed it out clearly that i am in no way against the catholic church in general only against some popes which made faults and because of that against the office of the pope anyways .
perhaps it was impossible to understand because i wrote "black sheeps" . that is a well known german figure of speech i guessed that it is in english simply black sheeps .
is this correct ? because if that means something completely different in english or is even nonsense then half of my post where i wrote that may be very hard to understand

church plays no great role here either at least not for the protestants in bavaria most catholics are a bit conservativer here though .
i think having a honorary office in the catholic church and beeing seen as a good catholic still would help you if you aim for becoming a politician here .

[Boron]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boron:
a source is poverty .
the islam is a 700-800 year younger religion than the catholic one .
so you could say history repeats sometimes.

Well, given the level of destructiveness of today's technology, this planet, and we humans, cannot afford to wait another 500-600 years until Muslims mellow out, become civilized, and abandon the path of the sword. A martyr-wannabe with a gene-tailored virus, who cares not who or how many die with him, is the most scary thing imaginable. And it's all too possible. Forget stolen nukes or home-grown ones. They can, at most, kill a few million. Some psychopath, funded by Saudi oil money, with the help of any of the many ex-Soviet unemployed bioweapons scientists, could end all human life. And unlike nukes, there's no technology that can be invented to detect such a thing at a port/airport. Hell, they could release the doomsday bug in their own country and let their own people, totally unknowing civilians, spread it around the world.

Cheery thought, eh?

---

very scary "visions" .
i carry them on how they could be too :
lets assume terrorists spread a very virulent disease as you described .
if it breaks out quite quick then perhaps the leaders of the countries of the world like bush , putin and so on will hide in sterile bunkers and nuke whole afrika , middle east and other "terrorist" countries .
perhaps a few of the leaders in the bunkers though survive because they didn't get infected yet or find a remedy .
but earth will be unlivable anyways for the next some thousand years because of the nukes .

a very scary variation too i think

[Boron]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Boron,


If you eliminate greed, vengeance, and true poverty, then you remove the excuses used for religious intolerance. But you have to get rid of all three. Curing poverty is not enough. Though it would take care of 99% of the problem, probably making the rest manageable.

EDIT: typo

yeah i had that in mind too . i think we need to add discrimination and grudge and fear .

it is a vicious circle :

poverty and discrimination of whole social classes / whole nations result first in 2 things . the lower class is jealous on the upper class and begins to hate them . the upper class begins to fear the lower class .
soon it escalates and they start to violate each other . if that point has been reached and continued for some years it is hard to ever stop it .
each group claims to only take vengeance for what the others started .

unfortunately i think it can't be overcome because the human nature at least of the great majority is egoistic and greedy .
some are quite moderate some not ( these become often the richest capitalists ) ,but the tendency to greedy and egoistic behaviour is in every human .

it seems though that men have this behaviour in a more dangerous / stronger form than women averagely . at least less women are willing to go to the next step to satisfy their greed and start wars .

if human nature wouldn't be egoistic the pure / idealistic communism marx and engels had in mind would work and most likely be the best type of government . but so far history has proven that human nature isn't ripe for communism or any similiar form of government where the aim is to provide everybody the best possible life .

perhaps it changes once we have a common enemy : aliens .
but i doubt if that is a preferable solution