What are you reading tonight?

[Prufrock]

I'm up to 'Glittering prizes' in't FE biography. It's taken me FECKING ages. And I'm a two book a week man. Not coz it's bad, far, far, from it, but I've had exams, coursework and more exams. One more push to a very interesting book about a very interesting man, simply put.

[bobo the clown]

Having finished the CJ Sansom (really vg), I read a Susanna Gregory called 'A Conspiracy of Violence'. Similar premise & style but set in the restoration period.

Now, changed tac and reading Pattie Boyd's autobiography 'Wonderful Today' Fascinating, if you are of a certain generation.

[clapton is god]

Now, changed tac and reading Pattie Boyd's autobiography 'Wonderful Today' Fascinating, if you are of a certain generation.

That's another one I have but have not got round to reading. Claptons autobiography came out at about the same time and I read that in preference, of course, and never went back to Pattie's. I'll get to it sooner or later.

[Harry Genshaw]

I'm currently reading 'Raven' the biography of Jim Jones. I was only a nipper when it happened so don't know much about it. A brilliant if disturbing read as it nears the climax.

[William the White]

The year is 1806 at the start of the next chapter of 'Jerusalem' - more than two centuries since my last post have passed... Adherents of three monotheistic faiths are still finding really shit excuses to kill each other...

[thebish]

The year is 1806 at the start of the next chapter of 'Jerusalem' - more than two centuries since my last post have passed... Adherents of three monotheistic faiths are still finding really shit excuses to kill each other...

are there also others in the world - atheists maybe - who are also finding shit excuses to kill each other??

[William the White]

The year is 1806 at the start of the next chapter of 'Jerusalem' - more than two centuries since my last post have passed... Adherents of three monotheistic faiths are still finding really shit excuses to kill each other...

are there also others in the world - atheists maybe - who are also finding shit excuses to kill each other??

Yes. Maybe not as enduringly though, and so geographically located, and so filled with ideological venom over quite so long a time...

Or perhaps you can point to another place where over two millenia three 'true faiths' have managed to contend with so much bloodshed, in such cruel ways over the interpretation of their 'truths'?

This is, of course, to exclude the pre-Christian years wherein the Jewish nation asserted its rights by conquest (as a gift from God)...

[thebish]

The year is 1806 at the start of the next chapter of 'Jerusalem' - more than two centuries since my last post have passed... Adherents of three monotheistic faiths are still finding really shit excuses to kill each other...

are there also others in the world - atheists maybe - who are also finding shit excuses to kill each other??

Yes. Maybe not as enduringly though, and so geographically located, and so filled with ideological venom over quite so long a time...

Or perhaps you can point to another place where over two millenia three 'true faiths' have managed to contend with so much bloodshed, in such cruel ways over the interpretation of their 'truths'?

This is, of course, to exclude the pre-Christian years wherein the Jewish nation asserted its rights by conquest (as a gift from God)...

no non-religious killings with ideological venom or endurance?? ahh - fair enough!

read on - maybe you'll get to the 20th century...

Mao Ze-Dong (communism) - perhaps up to 70,000,000 killings
Joseph Stalin (Bolshevik Marxism) - estimated in the 20,000,000s
Pol Pot (Maoist/Communism) - a piffling 1,700,000
Kim Il Sung (communism) - only 1,600,000

non religious ideologues finding so many ways cruelly to kill so many millions...

but - I'm sure you were going to mention it when you got that far!

[William the White]

The year is 1806 at the start of the next chapter of 'Jerusalem' - more than two centuries since my last post have passed... Adherents of three monotheistic faiths are still finding really shit excuses to kill each other...

are there also others in the world - atheists maybe - who are also finding shit excuses to kill each other??

Yes. Maybe not as enduringly though, and so geographically located, and so filled with ideological venom over quite so long a time...

Or perhaps you can point to another place where over two millenia three 'true faiths' have managed to contend with so much bloodshed, in such cruel ways over the interpretation of their 'truths'?

This is, of course, to exclude the pre-Christian years wherein the Jewish nation asserted its rights by conquest (as a gift from God)...

no non-religious killings with ideological venom or endurance?? ahh - fair enough!

read on - maybe you'll get to the 20th century...

Mao Ze-Dong (communism) - perhaps up to 70,000,000 killings
Joseph Stalin (Bolshevik Marxism) - estimated in the 20,000,000s
Pol Pot (Maoist/Communism) - a piffling 1,700,000
Kim Il Sung (communism) - only 1,600,000

non religious ideologues finding so many ways cruelly to kill so many millions...

but - I'm sure you were going to mention it when you got that far!

My response started with 'yes'.

And the rest of yours is answering a different post than mine. I dont know whose, but it ain't mine...

I'm sure you'll get round to answering mine when you get that far...

[thebish]

the religious killing (where it is actually religious killing and not summat else with a convenient label) is shameful and I abhor it and deeply regret any of it that went on in the name of "God" - I am at heart a pacifist.

I am always slightly taken aback by the fact that you normally come across as capable of deep(ish) thought and being able to dig beneath the surface. But whenever you have raised this issue in the past you have seemed entirely incapable of owning or admitting the industrial scale of killing done in the name of atheistic idealisms - on a scale that simply dwarfs anything the three major religions you cite have ever "achieved", and in a much smaller timescale. you still seem rendered similarly incapable on this occasion!

I suppose anyone is entitled to a blind-spot.

[TANGODANCER]

Politics and religion fighting each other in the same thread. That's double trouble.

[William the White]

the religious killing (where it is actually religious killing and not summat else with a convenient label) is shameful and I abhor it and deeply regret any of it that went on in the name of "God" - I am at heart a pacifist.

I am always slightly taken aback by the fact that you normally come across as capable of deep(ish) thought and being able to dig beneath the surface. But whenever you have raised this issue in the past you have seemed entirely incapable of owning or admitting the industrial scale of killing done in the name of atheistic idealisms - on a scale that simply dwarfs anything the three major religions you cite have ever "achieved", and in a much smaller timescale. you still seem rendered similarly incapable on this occasion!

I suppose anyone is entitled to a blind-spot.

I have no blind spot. I have consistently denounced the murders conducted in the name of 'socialism' - and in response to you directly...

I have NEVER defended in any way the atrocities of Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao or Kim il Sung...

It's just garbage of you to imply i have...

And unworthy of you, who i have often thought capable of honest debate...

but here you haven't entered into any debate, you have simply tried to deflect it into a polemic aimed at positions i have never held...

Perhaps your real issue is with Montefiore rather than me - I simply summarised accurately the essence of his 638 page volume, 'Jerusalem', as the story of three monotheistic religions murdering each other... And sometimes torturing and raping... and destroying each others holy places...

Take it up with him if you don't like it...

I didn't say it...

I have never defended the assassins whose appalling murders you identify...

[Lord Kangana]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 7047001914#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Lord Kangana]

I'll put a Jihad on you too.

[Prufrock]

Happen coz you're coming at it from the wonkiest of wonky positions. Stalin may have been an atheist, Hitler may (but it is very debatable) have been an atheist but neither did what they did because they were atheist. The murder Bill talks of happened were caused by religion. You might argue socialism, or fascism caused awful deaths, but you aren't having atheism.

[Prufrock]

Put another way, more people have been murdered by a murderer who believed in a god because the victim didn't, or believed in another, than have been murdered by a murderer who believed in no god, because the victim did.

[Gary the Enfield]

Happen coz you're coming at it from the wonkiest of wonky positions. Stalin may have been an atheist, Hitler may (but it is very debatable) have been an atheist but neither did what they did because they were atheist. The murder Bill talks of happened were caused by religion. You might argue socialism, or fascism caused awful deaths, but you aren't having atheism.

Hitler was a Catholic, I understood. And tea (tee)? total.

Imagine what that mad bastard could have done under the influence of drink or drugs!

....and murder is murder is murder. Organisations and individuals will debate their position and enforce their point. Some use weapons.

[Lord Kangana]

Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were all raised Catholics.

Lets not chat shit, the world is just full of morons.

[TANGODANCER]

Hitler was a Catholic, I understood. And tea (tee)? total.

A rather strange one who delved deeply into the occult in his quest for his super race. I think this is getting a bit off track bcause, whilst WTW was no doubt on a favourite topic, he was specifically talking about religions as opposed to politics. Said religions all use God's name rather than his actual word to justify un-Godly behaviour, but people who kill others have no real religion other than personal agendas of greed, supremacy, self-promotion and other forms of human madness......Oh,and his topic was specifically the City of Jerusalem. At least that's what I read WTW as saying...

[Lord Kangana]

Anyway, current historical thinking throws politics and religion out of the window, and points to racism (racialism?) as the root of the majority of conflicts. Obviously, this includes The Holocaust and Armenian genocide, the Balkan Wars etc etc ad infinitum, but also when applied to, say, US foreign policy, it provides a very good answer as to why they have such a beligerent stance to say the ME (and by association Islam.).