The Gaming Den

tzor wrote:Another nice diversion as the conditions in Iran has changed significantly from then and now; back then Iran wasn’t actively trying to join the nuclear club with the express intent of wiping Israel off of the map.

Pray tell, what conditions were different?

-Crissa

Tzor wrote:Reagan would not touch a Keynesian “throw money at the problem” stimulus in any shape or form. He would have not bailed anyone out and in fact did not bail anyone out back in 1987.

Oh, sorry, he's a military Keynesian so it's OK. After all, make-work programs are bad, but military make-work programs are good! The tens of billions spent on building planes, ships, tanks, and missiles create jobs and spur the economy, but are in no way a Keynesian job-creation program. Huh?

Also, the Federal Government payed out 125 billion dollars in S&L bailouts, starting in 1986, so he fails there too. And these weren't even the "loans" that we made in 2008, these were flat payments.

Ah look it’s a diversion. Technically Reagan pulled the troops out of a position where they were vulnerable to an offshore position where they could be easily defended while at the same time allowing for airstrikes against Syrian held positions that were firing on Beirut.

Lolwhut? Reagan pulled our troops out, and we "lost" in that Syria ended up controlling Lebanon's foreign policy and keeping military bases on Lebanese soil for the next twenty years.

The criteria is to win the war by increasing troops as advised by the military. Not to reduce the troops, shoot some missiles at some shit, and then lose the war. So he fails.

Another nice diversion as the conditions in Iran has changed significantly from then and now; back then Iran wasn’t actively trying to join the nuclear club with the express intent of wiping Israel off of the map.

Huh?

So the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran had the position that Israel is an illegitimate state that should be destroyed since the 70s doesn't count for anything? Is it because they helped attack Iraq in Operation Opera? Hell, they are continuing to help attack Iraq right now.

For that matter, Iran's Nuclear program was stalled in 1979 when Carter banned assistance to it. They were working on it domestically all through the 80s. Was it totally OK to ship them weapons merely because they were farther from successfully deploying their nuclear bombs than they are now?

-Username17

Crissa wrote:Pray tell, what conditions were different?

-Crissa

There were actually "moderates" in Iran back then. The recent faux election has put most of them in hiding (or in jail).

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret_co ... witzerland

On one hand it's decidedly unliberal, even though I am not sure it's actually violating freedom of religion - no mosque is prevented from being built, no one prevented from praying, just the towers on mosques are forbidden.

On the other hand I consider the islamistic views - as well as the conservative islam's views on women's right, other religions, and female genital mutilations and the burkha - as a threat to human rights, and given the latest moves where prominent muslim voiced support for implementing the shariah in switzerland, I cannot help but consider this also a political matter, with the minarets serving in place of burning crosses. There was pititfully few support for liberal rights and tolerance coming from the muslim community in the past where the shariah and atheists were concerned.

And of course seeing the extremist christian party, who supported the vote, having a success to write on their banners is a bad thing too, given they share a lot of the in my opinion despiccable goals and views of islamistic fanatics.

The big thing I don't get and what keeps me from calling myself a "leftist" is the incessant kow-towing and almost worship of Islam.

How is discriminating against a creed racist?

Furthermore, how can anyone claim to stand for the rights of women and then defend islam? Sure, there are a few kooks and heretics out there who let women show their faces in public, or leave the house without a male guardian, but they aren't just a minority, they are going against Sharia Law, which it is apparently the duty of all muslims to put into place everywhere.

Islam directly supports acts that are antithetical to civilisation, let alone common sense. How can it possibly be defended by anyone who calls themselves a feminist or a liberal? They have no problem attacking the Christian faith(not to defend them, they really should be attacking the Christian church), but they shut their faces the moment Allah pops up.

1. There is a difference between preventing people from imposing their views on others and preventing people from acknowledging their own views. It's literally the difference between freedom and tyranny.

2: Malaysia is a stupid country where Muslims can get arrested for drinking beer during Ramadan. But there are no veils. No plans to implement them either.

Yes, we need freedom from religion. But that also means freedom of religion. If people aren't free to wear head scarves and crosses, they aren't really free to express themselves in any other way.

So yes, every time someone comes out and forces women to wear veils, that's tyranny. But every time someone comes out and prevents women from wearing scarves - that's tyranny too. The whole point of freedom of expression is that it applies to people you don't like as well.

-Username17

What if acknowledging your own views is trying to impress them on others? Should you be allowed to burn a cross in your backyard as an expression of your beliefs, even though it also sends a message out to others, opprssing them? Should you be allowed to raise the nazi flag above your house?
If your religious practises force you, say, to wander around naked in public, sacrifice goats on the streets by burning them alive, should you be allowed to do so?

Vnonymous wrote:Islam directly supports acts that are antithetical to civilisation, let alone common sense.

Wrong. Some Muslims do. Of course some Christians want to burn gays at the stake, some satanists want to sacrifice babies, some environmentalists want to kill everyone driving cars and so on. Islam doesn't seem particularly noteworthy as far as the craziness of it's followers is concerned.

While the minaret banning is stupid, the problem with Freedom of Religion including Islam is that Islam includes bits which explicitly run against Freedom of Religion. In order to actually have freedom of religion, you can't have Islam, because of what it says you should do to atheists/heretics/women/drinkers/jews.

If someone is allowing women to actually be people, they're not following the islamic faith. If somebody wants to wear a burqa that's fine, but when they start committing honor killings things are going to far, and it really isn't bad to make those illegal, even if it does infringe on freedom of religion.

While Malaysia is a stupid country, there do exist countries where women are forced to wear the veils in public.

Wrong. Some Muslims do. Of course some Christians want to burn gays at the stake, some satanists want to sacrifice babies, some environmentalists want to kill everyone driving cars and so on. Islam doesn't seem particularly noteworthy as far as the craziness of it's followers is concerned.

Islam has in its' core texts pretty much everything I have claimed here. Some muslims aren't as evil as their religion tells them that they should be. This isn't a real plus for the religion.

Vnonymous wrote:While the minaret banning is stupid, the problem with Freedom of Religion including Islam is that Islam includes bits which explicitly run against Freedom of Religion. In order to actually have freedom of religion, you can't have Islam, because of what it says you should do to atheists/heretics/women/drinkers/jews.

As does Christianity. Every "holy book" is basically one part common sense, one part description of miracles and one part batshit insane. Everyone gets to do anything his religion tells him to except the parts which are forbidden by law. I don't want a rabid by-the-book-christian in my neighborhood anymore than I want a rabid by-the-book-muslim.

Vnonymous wrote:Islam has in its' core texts pretty much everything I have claimed here. Some muslims aren't as evil as their religion tells them that they should be. This isn't a real plus for the religion.

Question: Do you also believe that we should stop Judaism from being expressed, on the basis that there are wicked things written down in the Tanakh?

All of the Abrahamic Religions embrace the Ten Commandments. Those are a wicked doctrine. There are ten laws, and yet:

• Three of those ten laws are "stab people with the wrong funny hat"
• None of those laws manages to be "don't fight"
• None of those laws manages to be "don't rape"

That's horrible. The Ten Commandments are immoral and everyone who claims to draw moral lessons from them in any capacity is suspect. But... that's nominal every Christian, Jew, Muslim, Mormon, Baha'i, and whatever other splinter group you want to name. Anyone who claims to base their moral code on the Laws of Moses instead of the Laws of Hammurabi is a dangerous lunatic.

But that's an awful lot of people, and there is nothing to be gained by picking out one funny hat and load of crazy as being somehow more objectionable than another. Actions are what matters. And whether you stick your ass in the air or count little red beads is not an action that makes the slightest difference to anything.

Honestly, in the long run I think forcing different flavors of theists to compete against one another for followers is a good thing. When people are forced to refute The Holy Ghost, or Allah it's a lot easier to refute both.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:But every time someone comes out and prevents women from wearing scarves - that's tyranny too. The whole point of freedom of expression is that it applies to people you don't like as well.

How do you propose dealing with situations like Islamic Men Forcing Islamic Women to wear burkas, by threats or other means? What about Brainwashing children, like most religions try to varying degrees of success?

How do you propose dealing with Women who are forced by family and community to abide by Sharia law against their will?

It remains a fact that every law passed the enforces any limits on the ability to impose their will also "infringes" on the Muslim religion.

As per, anyone trying to deal with Murtak:

The Muslim holy book is still felt to be entirely in force by most muslims.

If 50% of Christians think all gays should be denied the right to marry.

And 98% of Muslims think all gays should be murdered. That's a huge difference.

And what, 70% of Muslims believe women should not be free to make their own choices without deferring to their husband.

What people actually believe matters.

Kaelik wrote:How do you propose dealing with situations like Islamic Men Forcing Islamic Women to wear burkas, by threats or other means?

Th burka is a weird point, because it should actually be against the law in the same way that running around in any other face obscuring mask is against the law. But aside from that: the head scarves are just fashion. How would you feel if Scottish Nationalists forced every man to wear kilts? Perhaps a bit immodest? That's exactly how a lot of women feel when they go out without a scarf for their head.

And that's not just Islam, that's a Christian and Jewish rule too! You make it go away just by pushing other, better cultural norms. Not through combative legislation. All the Islamic women I know run around without their hair covered all the time and it's no big deal.

But threats and force against what people want to wear is basically always wrong. If someone threatens you for not putting a hat on this is no better and no worse than someone else threatening you for putting a hat on.

What about Brainwashing children, like most religions try to varying degrees of success?

Personally, I view the religious indoctrination of children as child abuse. Plain and simple. But also universal. Every religion is equally guilty of that. Any religion that experimented with not indoctrinating children no longer exists. Like the Shakers.

And that's just fine. But basically, unless we're going to adopt the parentless child rearing strategy of the Naga Tribes, we're left with defacto allowing children to be forcibly indoctrinated into whatever bullshit woo that their parents believe. The solution for now is to force every child to attend public education and be exposed to multiple viewpoints. Breaking the spell is a lot easier when you realize that there is more than one choice.

Frankly, throwing Islamic kids into the fray with Christian kids is fucking great. The moment that none of the religions has a majority then none of the religions can as effectively bully people.

If 50% of Christians think all gays should be denied the right to marry.

And 98% of Muslims think all gays should be murdered. That's a huge difference.

Those aren't even real statistics. If you're going to include the radical imams of Pakistan in the total of Muslims, you have to include the doctor excommunicating bishop of Brasil in your tally of Christians. Hell, your tally is bullshit even just in the US. If you go by California's Proposition 8:

People who identified themselves as practicing Christians were highly likely to support the constitutional amendment, with 85 percent of evangelical Christians, 66 percent of Protestants and 60 percent of Roman Catholics favoring it....

Should we get rid of Evangelicals? Absolutely. But it has to be done slowly and carefully, because it's a nasty tumor. Abrogating freedom of expression is the equivalent of shooting the patient to get at that tumor.

-Username17

Anyone who claims to base their moral code on the Laws of Moses instead of the Laws of Hammurabi is a dangerous lunatic.

There's some dangerous lunacy in Hammurabi too.

Here're his ideas for health care reform

# 215. If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a serious injury, and has cured him, or has removed with a bronze lancet a cataract for a patrician, and has cured his eye, he shall take ten shekels of silver.

# 216. If it be a plebeian, he shall take five shekels of silver.

# 217. If it be a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the surgeon.

# 218. If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a serious injury, and has caused his death, or has removed a cataract for a patrician, with the bronze lancet, and has made him lose his eye, his hands shall be cut off.

# 219. If the surgeon has treated a serious injury of a plebeian's slave, with the bronze lancet, and has caused his death, he shall render slave for slave.

# 220. If he has removed a cataract with the bronze lancet, and made the slave lose his eye, he shall pay half his value.

hrm, actually those don't sound all that much worse than parts of the current house bill - sure it rations by price-fixing, but it includes a graduated payment plan and eliminates the need for costly malpractice insurance.

I have excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi actually posted next to my desk: #228-233, dealing with construction. AND KILLING CONTRACTORS FOR FAULTY WORK.

FrankTrollman wrote:All of the Abrahamic Religions embrace the Ten Commandments. Those are a wicked doctrine. There are ten laws, and yet:

• Three of those ten laws are "stab people with the wrong funny hat"
• None of those laws manages to be "don't fight"
• None of those laws manages to be "don't rape"

Sort of. Christianity gets a little weird when Jesus was asked what he thought was the first and greatest commandment, and he responded with two:

* Love the Lord your God with all your soul.
* Love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, I have no idea if these two were supposed to supersede the ten commandments or not. They certainly paraphrase them, but they also add more. The whole "love your neighbor as yourself" part does seem to cover not fighting or raping. Of course, it's not like there's no shortage of Christians completely and utterly failing to live up to that second commandment...

Josh Kablack -- what you quoted is still basically how we do damages. The eyes of people who make more money are seriously worth more.

FrankTrollman wrote:Th burka is a weird point, because it should actually be against the law in the same way that running around in any other face obscuring mask is against the law. But aside from that: the head scarves are just fashion. How would you feel if Scottish Nationalists forced every man to wear kilts? Perhaps a bit immodest? That's exactly how a lot of women feel when they go out without a scarf for their head.

So A) you are totally okay with banning the religious expression associate with Burkas. B) You don't see a problem with people forcing other people to wear kilts? If one group is imposing itself on others via threats and violence, how can you not address that in the law?

FrankTrollman wrote:And that's not just Islam, that's a Christian and Jewish rule too! You make it go away just by pushing other, better cultural norms. Not through combative legislation. All the Islamic women I know run around without their hair covered all the time and it's no big deal.

I'm not claiming we should specifically outlaw Islam here. I'm saying we should prevent the coerced wearing of funny hats that associate with your religion (EDIT: By which I mean, all coerced funny hatting or funny dressing or funny whatevering, for any reason. But people only do it for religion and politics, and you don't actually want people on your side who aren't really on your side in politics.). That would apply to any Jews coercing head coverings, and Christians don't follow any rules, so they don't actually enforce that, but if they did, it would apply to them too.

FrankTrollman wrote:But threats and force against what people want to wear is basically always wrong. If someone threatens you for not putting a hat on this is no better and no worse than someone else threatening you for putting a hat on.

Well right. And how do you deal with that wrongness? Do you make a law about it? And then you have to investigate families? Do you just ignore it and hope you can convince them to stop honor killing in ways that we can't prove who the killer was? Maybe there is some merit to the idea of merely preventing certain kinds of expression (Those kinds that are often being enforced) in specific public areas and institutions, like schools or DMVs. That could work. I'm not necessarily advocating it, merely asking how you would deal with the problem as hypothetical dictator.

FrankTrollman wrote:Personally, I view the religious indoctrination of children as child abuse. Plain and simple. But also universal. Every religion is equally guilty of that. Any religion that experimented with not indoctrinating children no longer exists. Like the Shakers.

Right, still not talking about how some religions need dealing with. Asking how to deal with a situation that is created by religion.

FrankTrollman wrote:Those aren't even real statistics. If you're going to include the radical imams of Pakistan in the total of Muslims, you have to include the doctor excommunicating bishop of Brasil in your tally of Christians. Hell, your tally is bullshit even just in the US. If you go by

Umm...
1) Of course those statistics are made up.
2) I am counting the radical Imams of Pakistan (and their large congregations that agree with them) and the Bishop of Brazil. The key part of that was two distinctions:

a) More Muslims are anti-gay/anti-women than Christians are anti-gay/anti-women.
b) The extent to which they are anti-gay/anti-women is greater.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense to make a distinction between Christians and Muslims, and as part of that distinction, focus more on addressing the Muslim section than the Christian.

Can we tear off tzor's side-rant here, please?

It's irrelevant to the topic and needs its own thread.

The Australian opposition put up Tony Abbott as opposition leader. Tony motherfucking Abbott.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/politics ... party.html

hahahahahahah

So long, Malcolm Turnbull, we'll miss your incompetence.

He wanted to run the liberal party so badly! And he got his wishes, because he ran the liberal party so badly.

RobbyPants wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:All of the Abrahamic Religions embrace the Ten Commandments. Those are a wicked doctrine. There are ten laws, and yet:

• Three of those ten laws are "stab people with the wrong funny hat"
• None of those laws manages to be "don't fight"
• None of those laws manages to be "don't rape"

Sort of. Christianity gets a little weird when Jesus was asked what he thought was the first and greatest commandment, and he responded with two:

* Love the Lord your God with all your soul.
* Love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, I have no idea if these two were supposed to supersede the ten commandments or not. They certainly paraphrase them, but they also add more. The whole "love your neighbor as yourself" part does seem to cover not fighting or raping. Of course, it's not like there's no shortage of Christians completely and utterly failing to live up to that second commandment...

As I understand it, yes, they were meant to supersede the ten. If I understand correctly, Jesus was basically saying:
"Alright, you lot have the ten down and society is established, so you don't need to worry about those specifics. You now get just two NEW commandments"

Koumei wrote:we'll miss your incompetence.

This is "The Mad Monk" we are talking about here.

I don't think you'll be missing out on any incompetence.

Hell you won't even be missing out on the insane arrogance Turnbull was famed for.

Like Cthulhu said, Tony Fucking Abbott!.

Kaelik wrote:The Muslim holy book is still felt to be entirely in force by most muslims.

There are two sources that Islam draws its tenets from: the Qur'an and the Hadith.

The Qur'an is the book. It says a lot of stuff. It's actually rather interesting to read. And it doesn't say a lot of stuff that's attributed as part of Islam.

For example: Jihad.

The word jihad isn't used very often in the Qur'an, and when it is used, it doesn't mean killing/slaying/death/murder/etc. It's used in the sense of perseverance in the face of opposition. It means "to strive."

Now, that's not to say that there's not a lot of killing of people in the Qur'an, just that jihad - as we know it today - is not in the book (Many [English] references that supposedly refer to jihad do reference real slaying and fighting, but jihad is not found in the actual Arabic text).

But it is in the Hadith.

The Hadith are supposedly the observations and examples of Muhammad, but (in my blasphemous opinion) they are sort of to the Qur'an what Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormons) is to the Bible. They're a lot of cultural additions that - in many respects - go against what's in the Qur'an (Another example is that of Eve being responsible for the downfall in the Garden - in the Qur'an, she's not. In fact, in the Qur'an, Allah created both men and women. There's no sign of the rib thing at all. But it is introduced in the Hadith and used to justify women as being inferior).

Qur'anists do not accept the authority of the Hadith as scripture, but they're considered heretics. Which is unfortunate because the more I study the Hadith, the more I'm convinced that they were conceived of by megalomaniacal men who were pushing their own agendas.

The hijab is mentioned in the Qur'an. The burqa/chador/etc are not. Their origins are cultural/environmental (great for sandstorms), not religious.