Middle East Crisis

[thebish]

Ah, must have got it wrong then. I thought gang-rape was the issue....

tricky one that... (even leaving aside the very tricky translation issues)

as the tale from Genesis is popularly known - a couple of angels come down to check out whether Sodom & Gomorrah are as bad as has been reported... they agree to stay at Lot's house - cos Lot is a proper good person. The people of those wicked towns assemble around Lot's house and demand that Lot sends the angels (disguised as men) out so that they can rape them (though - as I said - the translation is far from certain here!!)

Lot - remember, the good person in the story - and the one who will be rescued BECAUSE he is so good and moral - he (being hospitable to his guests) attempts to pacify the crowd by offering them his young daughters to be raped instead...

hmmmm... Old Testament tales as a source for human morality? no thanks, not for me!

[thebish]

I'm not on about banning it or purging it. I just wish those involved would realise it's not real and sack it off. You could do all your good stuff on Sundays too then .

well, you were a couple of pages ago... you wrote:

if we got rid of it [religion] we'd have less of those things (though not none of those things) and the ones we did have would at least be based on things that exist.

what does "if we got rid of it" mean if it is not to purge or ban it?

using the word "we" includes yourself (by definition) - so you can't have meant religions getting rid of themselves or "sacking themselves off" - as you are not religious.

[Prufrock]

Why do we feel the need to question & ridicule other people's beliefs ? Now THAT is the route to wars on a macro scale & to personal feuds on a micro one.

Believe what you want but don't ridicule beliefs you don't agree with and don't contemplate getting inside someone's head on their own thoughts and processes. Certainly don't do it from a position of ignorance .... in some cases pig ignorance and the desire to seem intellectually sound and seek acceptance.

Attacks like this will never, ever lead to the killer comment which change people's fundamental views. They have to do that themselves.

I didn't have you down as someone so delicate. Ched Evans is allowed to play football again, people should get over Malky Mackay's comments, but questioning you're friend in the sky, that's just beyond the bounds of decency .



In all seriousness, as I've mentioned to another poster in PM recently, what I like about this place is you can have a bolshy argument with someone on one thread, and on another be having a perfectly civilised conversation on something else. If people take offence at something someone says on the internet, then almost always they're doing it wrong. Particularly in cases like this. Views and opinions aren't owed respect. People absolutely are, and people's right to have an express opinions must be respected, but that doesn't mean afterwards saying, "Oh jolly well, we'll have to agree to disagree. I perfectly respect your opinion that the world is flat and built on a pile of tortoises".

Your last point is interesting. I don't think anyone taking part in this discussion expects to convert anyone else do they?! If you think I'm sat here smashing away at my keyboard thinking "aha - this is the killer point, the one where I convert a bloody VICAR into an atheist", then you may be some way off!

Christopher Hitchens described the point of these sort of debates, particularly on religion, but other things too, as not being to convert others, but to sharpen your own argument. I still think I'm right, so my position hasn't changed, but every time bish or anyone else has put forward a different attack or approach then it made me reevaluate what I think and why I think it, modify bits, look at things in a different way. This seems absolutely to be encouraged. And if anyone has been offended by anything anyone in this has said they want to stop being a bloody tart !

[Prufrock]

I'm not on about banning it or purging it. I just wish those involved would realise it's not real and sack it off. You could do all your good stuff on Sundays too then .

well, you were a couple of pages ago... you wrote:

if we got rid of it [religion] we'd have less of those things (though not none of those things) and the ones we did have would at least be based on things that exist.

what does "if we got rid of it" mean if it is not to purge or ban it?

using the word "we" includes yourself (by definition) - so you can't have meant religions getting rid of themselves or "sacking themselves off" - as you are not religious.

"We" means the human race. I haven't at any point intended to suggest banning religion and if it looked that way it's simply sloppy language on my part. I just wish it would disappear by consent coz people realised it was rubbish.

[Prufrock]

You still haven't answered where you think morality comes from

Well, it's all a bit Alexander Armstrong anyway isn't it? How about we ask why the Ten Commandments were necessary at all? See, we're bound to come up with different answer, you not believing there's a God to deliver them anyway. It's generally accepted that the Old Testament books were written many centuries before the birth of Jesus. If you want to believe morality was just something that happened, fine. I have no problem with that because it's pretty obvious to a believer that God saw it necessary to put a stop to the lack of it by producing the Commandments. Not much morality hanging about in Sodom and Gomorrah was there?

You still seem to believe that religion is something at the end of the yellow-brick road that some Dorothy can confront and turn off. The only voice religion has is a belief in a supreme deity who doesn't decide to start wars for any reason whatsoever. Men do that and religion is just, in quite a few cases, a convenient excuse used for it.

Amen...again..

This might depend on whether you think homosexuality and oral sex are immoral. We did once, but the times they are a-changing.

Ah, must have got it wrong then. I thought gang-rape was the issue....

So are we saying there was no morality at all before the Ten Commandments, or that there had been, but we needed a booster in light of what else was going on? If there had been but it had disappeared, where did that morality come from?

Also, I can't believe anyone who claims to get their morality from the Old Testament has read much of the bloody thing?! Abraham and Isaac is pretty nasty as well as Lot. Also, those ten commandments include bans on thought crimes (no coveting, which gets three separate commandments) but not rape; making graven images, but not paedophilia; and, swearing but not slavery! If I were writing a top ten refresher course, or inventing morality itself, I'm not sure mine would have looked like that.

[thebish]

"We" means the human race. I haven't at any point intended to suggest banning religion and if it looked that way it's simply sloppy language on my part. I just wish it would disappear by consent coz people realised it was rubbish.

in that case I wouldn't hold your breath - for two reasons..

1) because I can't be sure but I suspect you have quite a dawkinsesque straw-man approach to religion - and the God you don't believe in is also the one I don't believe in... lunatics in any field are an easy target - and (fair play to him) dawkins has made a reputation and a small fortune attacking easy targets and straw-men. I suspect the same is true of your mental picture of what faith means to people - your picture lacks depth and reality - and I would probably be against what you are against too...

2) but also - the people I mentioned earlier are real people - they are not the politicians' shallow version where they say "I met an industrial worker the other day and he told me..." They don't think that the care they receive from a local christian community is rubbish or unnecessary. christians are not more compassionate than anyone else - but the organisation of the local church focusses and organises and resources so that what for many are simply good intentions - become actually real - and people's lives are genuinely changed... not just dying people visited in their final hours - but real-world issues... another example.. personal debt is a real issue in the UK... one of the biggest and most widely trusted agencies now working in debt-counselling and negotiating debt reduction and repayment is CAP - Christians Against Poverty - and every single one of their professional counsellors and every single one of their debt management centres (and their Job Clubs) are directly paid for by the good folk of local churches..

hospices... who was interested in those before churches funded them? (and churches STILL fund most of them)

i could go on...

i don't see where how any of this stuff happens on anything like the breadth or scale that churches do it, or that it ever would...

i think that your petulant-sounding "rubbish" and "unnecessary" descriptions fall well short of the mark and demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of what is actually going on in local communities.

[bobo the clown]

I didn't have you down as so delicate

If people take offence at something someone says on the inteYour last point is interesting. I don't think anyone taking part in this discussion expects to convert anyone else do they?! If you think I'm sat here smashing away at my keyboard thinking "aha - this is the killer point, the one where I convert a bloody VICAR into an atheist" ...

And if anyone has been offended by anything anyone in this has said they want to stop being a bloody tart !

Not offended myself apart from at the sheer rudeness if droning on about people's beliefs and belittling them to boot. Especially that it happens so often. It's tedious .... and disrespectful and helps f'call.

[Prufrock]

"We" means the human race. I haven't at any point intended to suggest banning religion and if it looked that way it's simply sloppy language on my part. I just wish it would disappear by consent coz people realised it was rubbish.

in that case I wouldn't hold your breath - for two reasons..

1) because I can't be sure but I suspect you have quite a dawkinsesque straw-man approach to religion - and the God you don't believe in is also the one I don't believe in... lunatics in any field are an easy target - and (fair play to him) dawkins has made a reputation and a small fortune attacking easy targets and straw-men. I suspect the same is true of your mental picture of what faith means to people - your picture lacks depth and reality - and I would probably be against what you are against too...

2) but also - the people I mentioned earlier are real people - they are not the politicians' shallow version where they say "I met an industrial worker the other day and he told me..." They don't think that the care they receive from a local christian community is rubbish or unnecessary. christians are not more compassionate than anyone else - but the organisation of the local church focusses and organises and resources so that what for many are simply good intentions - become actually real - and people's lives are genuinely changed... not just dying people visited in their final hours - but real-world issues... another example.. personal debt is a real issue in the UK... one of the biggest and most widely trusted agencies now working in debt-counselling and negotiating debt reduction and repayment is CAP - Christians Against Poverty - and every single one of their professional counsellors and every single one of their debt management centres (and their Job Clubs) are directly paid for by the good folk of local churches..

hospices... who was interested in those before churches funded them? (and churches STILL fund most of them)

i could go on...

i don't see where how any of this stuff happens on anything like the breadth or scale that churches do it, or that it ever would...

i think that your petulant-sounding "rubbish" and "unnecessary" descriptions fall well short of the mark and demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of what is actually going on in local communities.

It would be churlish and stupid to deny that religious people do lots of good too, but do they do it *because* of their religion. Surely some people are inherently good and would do good things anyway - that's human nature? Religion is just their excuse for doing those things

[Prufrock]

I didn't have you down as so delicate

If people take offence at something someone says on the inteYour last point is interesting. I don't think anyone taking part in this discussion expects to convert anyone else do they?! If you think I'm sat here smashing away at my keyboard thinking "aha - this is the killer point, the one where I convert a bloody VICAR into an atheist" ...

And if anyone has been offended by anything anyone in this has said they want to stop being a bloody tart !

Not offended myself apart from at the sheer rudeness if droning on about people's beliefs and belittling them to boot. Especially that it happens so often. It's tedious .... and disrespectful and helps f'call.

Grow up you wuss !

As I've explained, I think it does help. The point isn't conversion. If others don't they'd be free to leave the thread, though everyone seems to be getting on fine, ta.

I also don't think there's been any rudeness, and views are there to be belittled! I don't think there's been any belittling of people though, that would be terrible.

You're wrong on this one Pru. You know you are .... just quietly back away. No-one will think any less of you. Honestly. They couldn't.

[thebish]

It would be churlish and stupid to deny that religious people do lots of good too, but do they do it *because* of their religion. Surely some people are inherently good and would do good things anyway - that's human nature? Religion is just their excuse for doing those things

i don't think so... I think it is much bigger and more serious than that. people need to be gathered together, motivated, resourced, supported and inspired to turn their good intentions and and warm-fuzzy thoughts of wellbeing into actual delivered results..

the church does this very well. i'm not sure who else does it with such breadth and scale.

it's one thing to sign a fb petition or send some money to end the Ebola crisis. it's quite another to actually get up and go out and achieve summat locally.

[bobo the clown]

I didn't have you down as so delicate

If people take offence at something someone says on the inteYour last point is interesting. I don't think anyone taking part in this discussion expects to convert anyone else do they?! If you think I'm sat here smashing away at my keyboard thinking "aha - this is the killer point, the one where I convert a bloody VICAR into an atheist" ...

And if anyone has been offended by anything anyone in this has said they want to stop being a bloody tart !

Not offended myself apart from at the sheer rudeness if droning on about people's beliefs and belittling them to boot. Especially that it happens so often. It's tedious .... and disrespectful and helps f'call.

Grow up you wuss !

As I've explained, I think it does help. The point isn't conversion. If others don't they'd be free to leave the thread, though everyone seems to be getting on fine, ta.

I also don't think there's been any rudeness, and views are there to be belittled! I don't think there's been any belittling of people though, that would be terrible.

You're wrong on this one Pru. You know you are .... just quietly back away. No-one will think any less of you. Honestly. They couldn't.

you have to admit that was rather good !!

I had so many congratulatory PM's !!

[jaffka]

Religion, the ones that I know and practised by the ones that I know certainly aren't anything like the ones you see associated with atrocities.

Idiots are out there but to suggest or even think that everyone who follows a religion wants to or has the potential to start beheading, killing etc, is quite frankly idiotic.

It's surely a relief then that no-one has suggested that.

You are the one whose viewpoint is the closest to it.

[TANGODANCER]

So are we saying there was no morality at all before the Ten Commandments, or that there had been, but we needed a booster in light of what else was going on? If there had been but it had disappeared, where did that morality come from?

Also, I can't believe anyone who claims to get their morality from the Old Testament has read much of the bloody thing?!

I think your twisting things around a bit here, are you not Pru? What I'd like to hear is where you see morality coming from at all rather than vaguely suggesting it just happened? Did one of those old cavemen types suddenly realise after beating his neighbour to death and taking his wife "Gee, I really must stop doing things like this. It's immoral!" I offered a view and truthfully, I don't know....are you saying you do?

[Worthy4England]

In fairness, I agree Pru. I don't give a flying what you fecking think. You're just wrong.

[jaffka]

It would appear that he is wrong across a wide spectrum of threads as well.

I wonder if he has something else on his mind, or something distant is troubling him?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Has anyone asked god what he thinks about it?

Yep. I've asked the cxnt. He's told me not to draw any cartoons of his favourite people, a bloke called Mohamed frexample. That is if I don't want his followers to hunt me down and slice me head off...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I didn't ask any dying cancer riddled people with no family what they thought, probably because I don't want to inflict any more bollocks on their lives!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Has anyone asked god what he thinks about it?

Yep. I've asked the cxnt. He's told me not to draw any cartoons of his favourite people, a bloke called Mohamed frexample. That is if I don't want his followers to hunt me down and slice me head off...

Apperently some c*nt who's the head of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has just issued an edict that states that c*nts like him shouldn't behead people because it's bad for publicity. Shoot them instead he says. I look forward to a bullet now then. I would remind Nasr bin Ali al-Ansi however about Daniel Pearl and Kenneth Bigley. You started it. Actually you didn't... a bloke called Mohammad did.

[a1]

rumours that this is related-

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/ ... 1-3645006/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Hoboh]

Ah well President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan must have no long term plans for his eventual retirement.
"What's that you say Mr air ministry man, 30 cruise missiles just passed through our air space and smashed into the Turkman mob and our jihadists"?
Turkey, friends of the terrorists.