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View Full Version : Mosul Christians - pay infidel tax, leave, or die. By noon.



Flounder
July 21st, 2014, 11:18 AM
It's hard to say which I'm more disgusted by, the caliphate-aping atrocities ISIS is committing against these blameless innocents, or the deafening silence from the 'moderate' Muslim media.

Ernst Bitterman
July 21st, 2014, 03:16 PM
I am also getting jolly sick of extremists of all flavours. It seems we'd have a much happier planet if the 10% at either end of any given political or religious bell-curve would bugger off somewhere else.

scrivelry
July 22nd, 2014, 08:05 AM
I agree with you both. Where, for that matter, is the general horror of all media, of all Christian churches, etc?
When you Google something like this and the first thing that comes up is from the Wall Street Journal, you realize the media has decided for whatever reason that they are going to keep it low profile.

I do not know if the Western Muslims are frightened to say anything, but the implication is that they do not have a problem with this, and how can a people expect to be treated without suspicion under these circumstances? And if the individuals are upset, but their leaders will not accept that and convey that, the leaders are doing their own constituents an injustice.

It is utterly sickening. On many levels.

ETA: In fact the Pope did make a statement, but if Western News Agencies are carrying it, it's not coming up when Googled under "Mosul Christians" until you get down to a Catholic News agency in the UK - hardly a frontrunner in Western Media...

Tony Rex
July 26th, 2014, 01:21 AM
I must say to their credit, Le Figaro did a front page, among the deafening silence by the mainstream media and world leaders on this issue.

And as to the reason why, this article http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100280803/iraqi-christians-are-raped-murdered-and-driven-from-their-homes-and-the-west-is-silent/ pretty much sums it up, with the emphasis on the 'silent war on Christianity' bit. And for detailed news on Iraqi Christians go to http://aina.org/ or http://www.asianews.it/index.php?web=1&l=en or Kurdistan news sites.

-snip- posted in anger...

VertOlive
July 27th, 2014, 07:15 AM
I must say to their credit, Le Figaro did a front page, among the deafening silence by the mainstream media and world leaders on this issue.

And as to the reason why, this article http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100280803/iraqi-christians-are-raped-murdered-and-driven-from-their-homes-and-the-west-is-silent/ pretty much sums it up, with the emphasis on the 'silent war on Christianity' bit. And for detailed news on Iraqi Christians go to http://aina.org/ or http://www.asianews.it/index.php?web=1&l=en or Kurdistan news sites.

-snip- posted in anger...

"In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

Our Lady of Fatima.

Frank
July 27th, 2014, 10:25 AM
I must say to their credit, Le Figaro did a front page, among the deafening silence by the mainstream media and world leaders on this issue.

And as to the reason why, this article http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100280803/iraqi-christians-are-raped-murdered-and-driven-from-their-homes-and-the-west-is-silent/ pretty much sums it up, with the emphasis on the 'silent war on Christianity' bit. And for detailed news on Iraqi Christians go to http://aina.org/ or http://www.asianews.it/index.php?web=1&l=en or Kurdistan news sites.

-snip- posted in anger...

"In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

Our Lady of Fatima.

..and will be a "Breaking News" story on Fox/CNN in a week or so!

GING GING
November 7th, 2014, 09:46 PM
I am also getting jolly sick of extremists of all flavours. It seems we'd have a much happier planet if the 10% at either end of any given political or religious bell-curve would bugger off somewhere else.

What kind of terror are these 10% of Christian extremists heaping on the world?

Empty_of_Clouds
November 8th, 2014, 10:31 AM
The terror of enforced ignorance.

Ernst Bitterman
November 10th, 2014, 03:54 PM
I am also getting jolly sick of extremists of all flavours. It seems we'd have a much happier planet if the 10% at either end of any given political or religious bell-curve would bugger off somewhere else.

What kind of terror are these 10% of Christian extremists heaping on the world?

It tends more towards local ugliness (http://thehumanist.com/news/religion/5-dangerous-christian-hate-groups) and sometimes isn't very overt in its Christianity (http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/british-nationalists-cross-burning-736). I'm certainly not down on Christians specifically-- we can even find people claiming to be radical Buddhists advocating violence against other religions.

Also, I'm not speaking specifically of terrorist acts in that wished-for banishment-- just plain foisting of misery upon the whole to further views that won't bring any improvement to the world. Westboro Baptists spring instantly to mind.

GING GING
November 10th, 2014, 05:43 PM
I am also getting jolly sick of extremists of all flavours. It seems we'd have a much happier planet if the 10% at either end of any given political or religious bell-curve would bugger off somewhere else.

What kind of terror are these 10% of Christian extremists heaping on the world?

It tends more towards local ugliness (http://thehumanist.com/news/religion/5-dangerous-christian-hate-groups) and sometimes isn't very overt in its Christianity (http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/british-nationalists-cross-burning-736). I'm certainly not down on Christians specifically-- we can even find people claiming to be radical Buddhists advocating violence against other religions.

Also, I'm not speaking specifically of terrorist acts in that wished-for banishment-- just plain foisting of misery upon the whole to further views that won't bring any improvement to the world. Westboro Baptists spring instantly to mind.

Ernst. West boro baptist church isn't a real Christian church. They are a group of wackos that hate America. They aren't even on the radar anymore. And when they were making a little racket their claim to fame was saying God hates american soldiers. In your original post, you lumped Christians into your 10% comment so that you weren't seen as hating Islamic terrorists. I asked you to point out the 10% of Christian terrorists and you point to a tiny little community church that are nothing more than America hating wackos. You can't answer my question because there are no Christian terrorists. You said that because you thought it sounded good. In a world where terrorism is real, it was very wrong of you to lump 10% of Christians in with Islamic terrorists.

Empty_of_Clouds
November 10th, 2014, 08:28 PM
Define terrorism.

Personally I find that an organised group that actively promotes belief over scientific evidence to be engaged in acts of terrorism.

But that's just my opinion.

GING GING
November 10th, 2014, 11:30 PM
Define terrorism.

Personally I find that an organised group that actively promotes belief over scientific evidence to be engaged in acts of terrorism.

But that's just my opinion.

What the heck are you talking about? We are having a real discussion between two adults who understand one another. You don't even know what you're saying. You're just typing some words. Go outside and play

GING GING
November 10th, 2014, 11:38 PM
Actually, neither of you can carry on an intelligent conversation. What are you talking about
"Wished-for banishment" and what is "foisting of misery upon the whole". What the hell are you saying "it tends more towards local ugliness"? This discussion is closed.

Empty_of_Clouds
November 11th, 2014, 12:31 AM
Discussion is open again! Yay!

Hearing something you don't agree with does not automatically invalidate it. At least not in 'intelligent' conversations. And neither does it lend you any authority whatsoever. If you don't like the drift of the discussion and/or cannot take part without being disparaging or otherwise offensive, then perhaps you shouldn't take part at all. I thought what Ernst said about 'foisting misery' to be quite perceptive as it cuts to the heart of the issues. Do you not see that?

Ernst Bitterman
November 12th, 2014, 11:07 AM
You may declare a discussion closed, but in a forum like this, that merely means you're withdrawing from it. I will pursue the matter a little further, and leave the door ajar in you wish to rejoin.





I am also getting jolly sick of extremists of all flavours. It seems we'd have a much happier planet if the 10% at either end of any given political or religious bell-curve would bugger off somewhere else.

What kind of terror are these 10% of Christian extremists heaping on the world?

It tends more towards local ugliness (http://thehumanist.com/news/religion/5-dangerous-christian-hate-groups) and sometimes isn't very overt in its Christianity (http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/british-nationalists-cross-burning-736). I'm certainly not down on Christians specifically-- we can even find people claiming to be radical Buddhists advocating violence against other religions.

Also, I'm not speaking specifically of terrorist acts in that wished-for banishment-- just plain foisting of misery upon the whole to further views that won't bring any improvement to the world. Westboro Baptists spring instantly to mind.

Ernst. West boro baptist church isn't a real Christian church. They are a group of wackos that hate America. They aren't even on the radar anymore. And when they were making a little racket their claim to fame was saying God hates american soldiers. In your original post, you lumped Christians into your 10% comment so that you weren't seen as hating Islamic terrorists. I asked you to point out the 10% of Christian terrorists and you point to a tiny little community church that are nothing more than America hating wackos. You can't answer my question because there are no Christian terrorists. You said that because you thought it sounded good. In a world where terrorism is real, it was very wrong of you to lump 10% of Christians in with Islamic terrorists.

Actually, I'm standing by my statement of the world being better off without extremists, because extremists are a source of misery. In my original post, I say "any given political or religious bell-curve," which does lump in Christians with Islam, as well as Zoroastrians, Yazidis, Democrats, Vooduns, Republicans, Scientologists, Communists, Shintos, Pan-Mayanists, Fascists and Athesists. The point of the statement is my disdain for and dismay at extremists, because they're the ones that make the trouble.

Those political and religious bell-curves I refer to contain MOSTLY people who have signed onto whatever cause it is out of a belief that moving that cause forward will bring about a better state of affairs for all humanity (even if "signing on" also includes being born into the group and never pausing to examine other ways of living). The fact that there's a quantity of raving zealots (and I use the word in its loose, non-denominational form) that have also signed on and are so blind to the good intentions of other causes that any act of violence is justified in doing away with all other approaches to living is what I have a problem with on one side of the notional curve; the other, and one I have just as much problem with, is the creeps who claim membership only for personal gain, and who will also resort to any means at hand of increasing that gain regardless of how it blackens the overall group. Actually, Westboro is a fabulous example of one or the other sort of problem-- I'll happily agree that they're not real Christians, but they shout(ed) about being Christian a lot, and to the passing observer who doesn't do any digging, their main function will be to produce a feeling of "That's what Christianity is about? Eeyuck."

I think you're mainly upset that I didn't specifically exonerate Christianity from my statement. As a student of history and an observer of current events, I can't do that; the problem of extremists tars Christianity just as much as any other cluster of religion. Does this mean, as you suggest, that I don't hate Islamic terrorists? Hell, no, it doesn't. I hate the crap out of them. I also quite dislike the groups down the links I posted previously.

Now, let me illuminate some of the things that apparently make you wish to withdraw from the discussion:
- "Wished-for banishment"; that's me saying I wish extremists would bugger off. Pretty clear.

- "foisting of misery upon the whole"; 'foisting' would be forcing it upon, and by 'the whole' I mean everyone. For an example of this, we need only look at what ISIS (or ISIL, if you prefer) is up to. The people they have direct contact with are obviously miserable. The need to react against it makes others miserable; foreign armies, the families and nations which support them, other Muslims who want nothing to do with them but get blamed for their actions. Thus do they foist misery upon the whole.

- "it tends more towards local ugliness"; click down those links for examples. They're not acting on the world stage, nor even (in all cases) on a national one. They're content with local rather than trans-national terror in the hearts of their victims. If you don't think burning a cross in a public place is an act of terrorism, we're not going to find much common ground.

...and just to make it a three-way fight, I'm not convinced that Cryptos's definition of terrorism is broad enough; I can think of about a dozen acts of terror that could be committed on behalf of those dedicated to the fight against global climate change, a group for whom belief and scientific evidence combine.

Empty_of_Clouds
November 12th, 2014, 02:32 PM
Nice post, Ernst. I largely agree with pretty much everything there, although I do not try to promote the idea of hate (which is damned hard considering how some of these people act and talk).

It's not really a 3-way fight. I wasn't offering a definition, merely a single example to Ging Ging's request for clarification. Terrorism, IMHO, should be examined in very broad terms. Some terrorism is quite subtle, but it is still extant.

GING GING
November 12th, 2014, 02:52 PM
Ernst. I didn't quite understand your last paragraph. Are you talking about Eco terrorists?

GING GING
November 12th, 2014, 02:55 PM
Ernst. On a side note. You do know that you tend to ramble, don't you?

Empty_of_Clouds
November 12th, 2014, 03:38 PM
I worte something else here, and then realised that I did not really know what I was trying to say. So I deleted it.

There is a lot of animosity toward the Muslim faith. Counterpoint: I note that there are an awful lot of church-door Christians these days. Perhaps it was ever thus?

Ernst Bitterman
November 12th, 2014, 07:01 PM
Ernst. I didn't quite understand your last paragraph. Are you talking about Eco terrorists?

I'm talking, in the last paragraph, about the possibility of terrorists who don't deny science as a part of their axe-grinding. Cryptos seems to have taken my point (as I take his, subsequently).

Rambling is a side effect of a thorough engagement with a topic. I would have gone on, except I was at work and had to give it a little attention.

Scrawler
November 13th, 2014, 05:40 AM
There is a lot of animosity toward the Muslim faith.

They have done a lot to earn it.

jar
November 13th, 2014, 07:05 AM
The idea of taxing "Non-Believers" is certainly not new or restricted to some caliphates. In fact it was widely popular among Christian countries throughout Europe over most of the last 2000 years. Pogroms ran a close second with genocide also in contention. The most common target for Christians were Jews but Muslims were also often targeted.

Ernst Bitterman
November 13th, 2014, 08:50 AM
There is a lot of animosity toward the Muslim faith.

They have done a lot to earn it.

There's my point again. A group of violent dinks who claim connection to Islam have done a lot to earn it. The majority of Muslims have earned that animosity in exactly the same way the majority of western Christians earned the animosity of the people in the Middle East during the First Crusade: the actions of a relatively small group of extremely active and belligerent third sons of moneyed houses who were sticking swords in ALL the locals because they couldn't tell the difference between Turk, Jew, or Orthodox Christian, and in the main didn't much care about those differences because they were there to grab some "unclaimed" land. All of the above is why the ICRC uses a crescent rather than a cross certain areas; lingering hard feelings.

"They" and "Those people" are terms we have to be very careful about applying.

Ernst Bitterman
November 13th, 2014, 09:00 AM
The idea of taxing "Non-Believers" is certainly not new or restricted to some caliphates. In fact it was widely popular among Christian countries throughout Europe over most of the last 2000 years. Pogroms ran a close second with genocide also in contention. The most common target for Christians were Jews but Muslims were also often targeted.

There was also the "Head Tax" here in Canada and similar measures in the US, aimed at keeping the immigration of Chinese down to as low a level as possible, with the similar underlying sentiment of "We don't like 'em, they're not like us, what can we do to be rid of 'em?"

Scrawler
November 13th, 2014, 09:40 AM
There is a lot of animosity toward the Muslim faith.

They have done a lot to earn it.

There's my point again. A group of violent dinks who claim connection to Islam have done a lot to earn it. The majority of Muslims have earned that animosity in exactly the same way the majority of western Christians earned the animosity of the people in the Middle East during the First Crusade: the actions of a relatively small group of extremely active and belligerent third sons of moneyed houses who were sticking swords in ALL the locals because they couldn't tell the difference between Turk, Jew, or Orthodox Christian, and in the main didn't much care about those differences because they were there to grab some "unclaimed" land. All of the above is why the ICRC uses a crescent rather than a cross certain areas; lingering hard feelings.

"They" and "Those people" are terms we have to be very careful about applying.

"sticking swords in ALL the locals because they couldn't tell the difference" ;) That is kind of funny, because apparently lots of people still don't know the differences between the 73 divisions of Islam, and talk of it as if it were one thing. Like when a fatwa is made, people don't check which cleric and what sect, they might think it applies to all Muslims. So people get confused by what Islam stands for. I read somewhere that they thought G. Bush did not know the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite when he made war on Iraq.