The Scary Part of Religion

[Sidhe]

Double post.

[Sidhe]

@Nah

Have you heard of Christian fanatics committing mass murder or series of big terrorism, last ten years or so?

Yeah The Lord’s Resistance Army, Ugandan fanatics infected by US evangelist end of the world nonsense and using it as an excuse to behave appallingly.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_R … RA_hunt-12

The Lord’s Resistance Army (also Lord’s Resistance Movement or Lakwena Part Two) is a sectarian guerrilla army based in northern Uganda.

The group was formed in 1987 and is engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the “spokesperson” of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Holy Spirit, which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations.[3] The group adheres to a syncretistic[4] blend of Christianity, Mysticism,[5] traditional religion,[6] and witchcraft,[7] and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and Acholi tradition.[3][8][9][10] The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forcing children to participate in hostilities.[11] The LRA operates mainly in northern Uganda, but also in parts of Sudan and DR Congo.[12][13]

The LRA is currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by the United States…

…Christmas massacres and latest developments
Main article: 2008 Christmas massacres (Congo)

In 2006 a team of U.S.-trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers were sent to assassinate Kony, but instead all of them were killed by Kony’s men.[38]

On December 28, 2008, the Ugandan army accused LRA rebels of hacking to death 45 people in a church in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.[39] An aid official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity confirmed Friday’s massacre, saying the killings took place in a Catholic church in the Doruma area, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Sudanese border. “There are body parts everywhere. Inside the church, the entrance and in the church compound,” the aid official said. “We got information the rebels cut 45 people into pieces,” added army spokesman Captain Chris Magezi.

Caritas International estimated the number of victims to be about 500. Caritas said that the LRA attacked a concert organised on December 25 for Christmas in Faradje and again the following morning, killing about 150 people altogether. Caritas said that LRA also killed 75 people in a church north of Dungu and burnt the church, killed 48 people in Bangadi, and 213 people in Gurba.[40] The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated the death toll as 189 in Faradje, Doruma and Gurba.[40]

Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon stated that he “condemns in the strongest possible terms the appalling atrocities reportedly committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in recent days”.[41] Caritas International said that it was “shocked by its staff reports” of the massacres.[42]

Efforts by the Ugandan army in early 2009 (‘Operation Lightning Thunder’) to inflict a final military defeat on the LRA were not fully successful. Rather, the US-supported operation resulted in brutal revenge attacks by the LRA, with over 1,000 people killed in Congo and Sudan. The military action in the DRC did not result in the capture or killing of Kony, who remained elusive.

Lovely people.

[Mad_Man_P]

@Nah

I clearly said “I’m not gonna try to persuade someone who wants to believe in objective or absolute moral/value/view/whatever. You can enjoy your view, as long as you want.”

Exactly! I know why too… because you don’t know how to make an argument!

Personally, I wold measure the degree of rationality by the structure of the perspectives used.

I mean if this statement dosn’t reak with your blatant inability to deal with objectivity than I don’t know what does…
I don’t care about your “personal” ways of mesureing rationality! This amount to your opinion!

Rationality is a shared faculty. your personal opinions don’t matter! That’s like offering me your personal opinions on what the shapes of squares should be!

moral objectivism tends to have some sort of justification or reasoning (although baseless, ultimately).

Another opinion! Where’s the argument? where’s the reasoning behind this statement? It’s just not there!

This is all you have offered me since we began talking… Opinion after opinion. And when I respond to YOUR challanges and place the pressure on you to argue your case you say shit like: “I’m not gonna try to persuade someone who wants to believe in objective or absolute moral/value/view/whatever.”

and go on as if I had never answered your challange!

There are two possibilities here…
1: You don’t know how to make an argument
2: You don’t want to make an argument, you just want to air your opinions!

And since I don’t care about your opinions… I have no reason to continue listening to you!

And finally, I don’t expect/need/request/demand any respect from you.

All I can say is: lucky you! Since otherwise you’d be dissapointed!

[Jayson]

@Nah

Have you heard of Christian fanatics committing mass murder or series of big terrorism, last ten years or so?

If you count some of the stuff I heard in the military…yeah…if not, no.

I was once told in a company brief, by a Platoon Sergent, that we were fighting as Christians.
I laughed because among us were Korean soldiers (I was in Korea at the time), and I knew most of them were not Christian, nor were about 35% of the rest of my company.
One was Wicca actually, and had special permission to have a ceremonial knife in his barracks room.

But anyways, I know what you mean, and I know…it’s not like Christians are actively running around killing people at the moment.
I would prefer it to stay that way.

I really don’t like what has happened when religions start becoming militant, and considering how many Christians we have in the US…I really wouldn’t like to see a popularity of violence for faith among them, less we make a Middle East in our own house.

So, from my personal point of view, Jesus camp might be a potential danger for the peaceful living of other citizens, but there are direct and on going offenders that should be tackled IF you are against pro-violence hate education based on holiness (if you include flag/Constitution/President/etc as holy cow)

I have always said and held, that Patriotism is nothing but the Religion of the State, and that the safest allegiance to ones nation is a critical and challenging allegiance.

But I’m talking about empathy. Do you sense their fear as something your family, your wife, or your kids would feel?
Do you feel their fear is basically the same as your own fear?

They are just scared little animal like us all.

I agree.
And I can relate…and because I can relate is why I felt it as a problem.

My spidey senses were tingling.

When you reread your OP, and your reaction when you saw the video, don’t you think you had some degree of “victim mentality”?
I mean you were upset/pissed. But wasn’t it coming from fear (of potential danger)?
And in the emotion, I think you’ve over evaluated the risk associated with them and also went into “us” vs “them” mentality to certain degree.

Of course.
I’m a parent.

But I check myself on reasonable reaction when it involves meta-application.
My whole point of this was to shock out the point that religion is dangerous, and this kind of showcases exactly why it can slip right in and create something that can become the extremist violent forms we see in Islamic Militant groups without even seeing it coming.

That right there was the primary point of the thread; hence the name.

I do think the basic understanding of the relative nature of logic (or any notion/evaluation/value/moral) can be a key.
Unfortunately, I don’t think most people are ready to swallow it.

And too many of us have the strong habit to think only to justify the emotion (to present emotional judgment as if it’s rational evaluation).

Yep.

Why should you limit your policies for religion?
Why not “No one shall give pro-violence indoctrination to children under the age of XXX” if you insist? (I would put “legal drinking age” for XXX, which seems to be 21 in some states. It’s the age you are allowed to intoxicate yourself with dangerous and addictive drugs that might cause lots of violence and violent accidents )
It would cover Neo-Nazi youth camp, Jesus camp, and any other organization AND violent family environment.

It shouldn’t, but I’ll take religion for the very least as it is more common of a public access and adherence mechanic than any other argument from emotion structure.

Having said that, personally, I’m against legal means to control these people.
I think we simply need to grow out of emotional thinking and especially from victim mentality.
We need a law when there are two or more people who can’t understand each other to negotiate and settle their matter.
With the law, we usually get bunch of expensive layers who love to complicate the case, too.
And in legal battle, we all loose our time, money and probably other things, just like when we play in casino or stock and other market (Casinos and stock companies always win, unless they are very very badly administrated…).
I don’t want expensive complicated system constructed out of rather simple silliness. I think we already have too many of them.

I agree…unfortunately; reality of the US is that we are a nation that doesn’t know how to behave with mature respect and moderation without a law that tells us to do that.

I don’t know why we are so immature by comparison to many other sister countries, but we are.
It’s sad, but it seems to be our lot.

[skepticgriggsy]

triangle, I quite agree!
I favor prison for those parents and others responsible for chlidren dying due to faith-healing, the reliance only on their God.The rights of the child are here paramount, not those of the others .
The judge has ordered the Christian child to return Muslim to her parents, even though she is quite apprehensive that that would kill her for her belief. I hope that she will nevertheless be safe. Might others here comment on all this.
The Stumps, thank you for this needed thread! :-"
Besides these cruel matters, I find any religion bereft of facts for its supernatural elements, yes,Buddhism too,- karma and reincarnation.Otherwise, naturalists could be Buddhists, and some atheists indeed are.
[b] I so encourage the moderates to denounce more the fundamentalists’ trying to insert creationism and abstinence only in the schools and other theo-con matters. However, the Tanakh itself declares that people should stone those who worship other Gods and that Yahweh is a jealous one,ever needing worship, because of low-self-esteem! Note how He ever has murders performed! What is the context of Yeshua exclaiming: Bring my enemies before me and slay them. Anon I’ll post why I state that he was not a nice man!
[b][ One can have religion’s good by replacing it with other matters, Just do more of what else one does.See transitory purposes… to see how.
I refer to my threads,not for self-promotion, but to encourage dialogue!
Good will and blessings to all!

[matthatter]

Mad Man P,

Your posts make it clear that you’re totally misinterpreting a lot of what Nah has written to you.

Though his explanations could have been a bit more precise, I can’t really blame him for that; I understand his points, but that understanding requires a certain kind of context(ual/“perspective”-using way of making “sense” of things)… with this context what he says is obvious, but without it one would have to explain A LOT just so you could get an idea of that context.

One example… the whole “general” versus “universal” thing.

“In general” is basically what that word “means” (is experienced as, and would be verbalized/judged as) when it is not seen/judged in light of a specific situation…

“Do you think nonviolence is good?” Yes (I think many of the world’s problems wouldn’t happen if people made a point to try to understand each other and talk things out).

“Do you think you should be nonviolent when you’re being assaulted by a criminal who won’t listen to you?” No.

His use of general is TOTALLY different from “universal”.

You say he doesn’t know how to argue… but I don’t think he can try much he hasn’t already tried; if a young child is convinced there is more water in a tall glass than in a short wider glass, even though you’ve demonstrated pouring all the water from one into the other, you aren’t going to change his mind…

[Jayson]

Great…now we’re going to get a debate about whether Maddy properly understood Nah…sigh

There are better things to talk about right?

Why not trying something about what Nah actually said…or maybe something that Maddy said?
Any thoughts on the actual content, rather than form?

[Mad_Man_P]

@TheStumps

Great…now we’re going to get a debate about whether Maddy properly understood Nah…sigh

No worries… I wasn’t going to reply.

[matthatter]

But what’s the point of commenting on content when someone is just going to misinterpret your comment?

Sometimes the root of the misunderstanding is the other person’s mind in “making sense” of another’s argument… and in order to clarify is it necessary to point out the receiver’s limitation in decoding the message.

The general versus universal thing is an example of that.

[Jayson]

If you are worried about interpretation…then it would be a bad idea to post anything on ILP really.
Most threads are spent explaining meanings.

Anyways…

[Mad_Man_P]

@TheStumps

Most threads are spent explaining meanings.

Some more successfully than others… Some more honestly.

[matthatter]

If you are worried about interpretation…then it would be a bad idea to post anything on ILP really.
Most threads are spent explaining meanings.

Who said anything about worrying? People misinterpret what I say all the time, and sometimes I try explaining it another way, knowing they’re already misinterpreting, because I think there may be some chance they might get it; I think further misinterpretation is likely, but I make another attempt anyway… that’s not worrying.

Once one feels that which is getting in the way of their explanation is the other’s misinterpretation, it’s sometimes deemed necessary to explain that misinterpretation.

[Jayson]

Anything to say on the topic of religion being capable of being a scary mechanic for silently provoking active violent offenses when left unchecked?

[Mad_Man_P]

This is priceless!

Now you can debate the value of having a debate about whether I properly understood Nah, Stumpy! So much better! yay!

matthatter

Nah’s not dead, he’s not a profet of any God I worship, his posts here are not holy texts!

You and I do not need to debate how best to interpret Nah’s posts!
Primarily, because I don’t care enough to do so!
But also because Nah can speak for himself if he feels the need.
And even IF Nah decided to shed some light on his meaning and intent, I wouldn’t care to hear his retrospective re-inventions.
So what on earth makes you think that I’d care to hear your interpretations of Nah?

I don’t mean to be so rude… but you’re really leaving me no option here!

It just strikes me as such incredible hubris when people inject their opinions as if they were made of gold! If you have an argument by all means… make your case, help me understand. But if you just have an opinion with no means of impressing it upon me through rational argument, then keep it to yourself! You’re wasting my time!

[matthatter]

Nah’s not dead, he’s not a profet of any God I worship, his posts here are not holy texts!

… huh?

All I said is you’ve been misinterpreting a lot of what he’s said.

I suggest you investigate why that would lead you to make the above “point”.

Why would I try to make a point to someone who couldn’t even accept the difference between someone saying “Generally” and “universally”?

I made a point to explain your limitation when it comes to successful communication. As long as you still have that limitation, any “on topic” argument is fruitless.

[Mad_Man_P]

[Jayson]

Well…unless we actually have anything to talk about that’s worth talking about relating to the topic…I’m probably going to just lock this down because I think it’s extremely silly to debate about the ability to interpret something on a forum, when this A) isn’t the general discussion section and B) isn’t a thread titled, “The issue of interpreting posts in forums”.

Oh…and I really don’t want to read an, “He started it”, response post, so please, for the love Pete and all the saints who surround him…don’t…anyone.

[matthatter]

Hey, I’ll just stop contributing to this thread, no need to lock it. Don’t let me get in the way of indulging yourselves with the “intelligent dialogue” of back-and-forth prejudice reiteration.

[Jayson]

Erm…it was mostly a dead thread before you posted though…that was all kind of done with.

[felix_dakat]

All were repelled by the video but gave different reasons for their reactions.